Tommy Angelo mentioned a word in passing in a recent entry in his blog.  He was talking about a coaching session for live play at a casino and is talking about establishing his image and he says, “so that he can observe me as I demonstrate behaviors and attitudes that build a strong aura of confidence and shamelessness”.

It’s that last word, “shamelessness” that struck me. I’m not generally a shameless poker player, but I recognize the usefulness of being perceived as one, or of being willing to be perceived as one. As such, I realize this as a weakness on my part.

I’m a “nice” person. I recognize too that I have some stage 3 in Kohlberg’s theory of moral development meaning that I have some desire to be liked. In a game of hockey, soccer, basketball, I’ll be aggressive going after the ball/puck and making plays ’cause I know that’s expected and that’s how the game is played. Playing poker I’ll bluff, semi-bluff, c-bet ’cause I know that’s expected and necessary in appropriate situations. Still, I don’t think that I’m “shameless”. I hesitate to pull the trigger stealing blinds every time it’s unopened or 3-betting the same player multiple times because I think that he’s likely to fold most times. It’s just not “polite”.

So I’ll steal or 3-bet 2 times, but the 3rd time I’ll back off even though I know that you’re supposed to be “shameless” and keep doing it “until he plays back”. One recent example I 3-bet the player to my right, he folded. Later I raised his limp, he called, I c-bet the flop that I missed, he check-raised and I folded. Then later he raised, I 3-bet again with KK. I bet the low flop, he check-raised, and I raised him back. He took a while, then folded. I told him I wasn’t targeting him, just getting cards.

Why did I say that? I felt guilty because I had the sense that he was a decent player, but because I was being aggressive toward him so often it might look to him and to the rest of the table as if I were targeting him as a weak player, which was not my intention.

I have a real weakness in my poker persona in that I don’t want to be mis-thought of. I want to be respected, not feared or dispised. Why does it matter to me? This in on-line poker, I’m not sitting with these people, they don’t know who I am, they’re not going to beat me up in the parking lot after the game.

I know that I’ve looked at this issue before in my blog, but it helps me to keep coming back to issues and approaching them from slightly different angles. This way I can gradually chip away at the artiface that stands in my way.

• Tommy Angelo: Lopping off your C game