TV Poker and Table Image

Paul Phillips is thinking about the implications of televised poker:

I was never in the camp that having my hole cards exposed to the world would be detrimental to my results; I was indifferent because television almost never gives you enough context and unless you understand WHY a player does what he does, you are no closer to predicting his future actions.

But now I feel like I'm totally in a position to manipulate people who have seen me play on TV. Since I know exactly what's been on TV I can assemble a model of myself based on that and (with numerous caveats) grant that model to strangers. If you can form an accurate sense of your opponent's model of you and make the correct adjustments, you have a monster advantage.

I think this could work very well against rank-and-file players. I'm not so sure, though, about world-class players who might have played many hours against Paul and have their own mental models of his play, formed independently from any TV broadcasts. (Of course, there are a lot more rank-and-file players than world-class players.)