Unwitting Body Language In Poker

If you want to increase the odds of victory drastically in your favor, learning body language just might be your ace in the hole. I know some of you are saying, “Well if I have a non-suited 7-2 and they have 4 of a kind they will almost definitely win! I doubt knowing body language and poker tells would help me then”. An important part of playing live poker has to do with figuring out what your opponents’ body language means. These indicators are called “tells” and refer to involuntary physical movements that give us a clue about the cards.

• Unwitting Body Language In Poker Tournaments
• Unwitting Body Language In Poker Games

You know them as “poker tells,” but those player habits you watch for are a dialect of body language. Salespeople and pickup artists study body language to improve their game. Poker players study tells for the same reason.

Call them tells or something else, but all body language is cut from the same cloth. Psychologists say women are better natural body language readers than men. Evolutionary biologists believe men spent so much time on their own, waiting for game, they didn’t need to interpret body language as often as women.

Despite the various theories about who is better or why it exists, the basics of body language are easy to grasp. In a crowd situation, some people seek attention, and others shun it. Most of the people on the edge of the crowd are probably not fully invested in the group.

Then again, it’s easy to misinterpret the signals one sees. Body language experts say you should look for more than one sign of interest, rejection, confidence, or whatever.

Is It True You Can Hold a Conversation in Body Language?

A popular belief circulating for years on social media through various memes claims that communication is 93% body language.

Is that really true?

In 2017, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University announced they had designed a computer that reads body language. It was an impressive feat.

And yet, the first generation of software only tracks body parts as they move around and it can’t be used to understand what another person is saying.

If a universal translator can work through reading body language, this isn’t it.

Journalist Philip Yaffe, who has a degree in mathematics, debunked the idea that states communication is 93% non-verbal communication is 93% non-verbal in an article he wrote for Ubiquity in October 2011. Yaffe attributes the idea to a general misunderstanding of the research Dr. Albert Mehrabian published in 1967.

In short, you may use every nuanced glance and posture you can think to tell the girl across the room you want to date her. She probably has no idea what you’re trying to say. She may even think you’re a little creepy.

So, What Does Body Language Really Tell Us?

Experts say that body language conveys your mood in a particular situation. You may also use body language to enhance what you’re saying. A good example is the way a politician points his or her entire hand in a certain direction when “making a point” during a speech.

The catalog of nearly universal human gestures and expressions is extensive. One often knows when people are fearful, angry, or happy without their saying a word. Psychologists say if you express your emotions strongly you may project them, and someone else will begin sharing them.

Picture two guys who suddenly start yelling at each other for no clear reason. It’s possible one of them projected his anger at the other. The second guy would be right to feel defensive, but later he may wonder why he felt so angry.

Body language also reveals:

• When people are open to ideas
• When they’re closed
• Feeling confident
• When a person seizes a dominating position over others.

Have you ever had a boss put both his hands on your desk? That is an example of dominating body language. It asserts that the other person is your superior, and you are that person’s subordinate.

It might seem fair to say body language does convey a lot of information. A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say. The child whose mother blocks their bedroom door until he cleans up his mess gets the message.

Body Language Is Also Subtle, and Poker Players Learn This

When playing a game of cards, people may inadvertently express their confidence, or lack thereof, in the cards they have been dealt. It could be a frown that says, “I hate these cards.” It could be a sudden intense stare at other players that says, “I think I have a good hand.”

Experienced poker players learn to assess tells in the game quickly. If a player acts like he has a strong hand it is probably weak. The opposite is most likely true if he acts like he has a weak hand.

Although psychologists say it’s impossible to NOT communicate, people can channel their energy into other directions. The blank expression and lack of movement suggest a player has a few games under their belt.

By the same token, someone who is broadcasting their feelings probably lacks experience in the game.

Another tell to watch for is how people act when they are not at the table. Compare that behavior to how they act when in the game. Excitable people struggle to contain their energy.

Who protects their cards at the table? Who counts their chips? Who is ready to call? Who could care less about what is in their hand?

The less sure you are how they feel about their cards, the less you’ve learned from their tells.

Keep an Eye out for Tension

What do you do when you’re tense? Don’t be surprised if you struggle to describe how you reveal your tension.

People are tense when they restrain themselves. The runner braced to charge down the track is tense with excitement and energy. The student dreading to hear the teacher call on them is tense for another reason. In both situations, you and I will contain our energy.

A poker player’s tension might slip out in the way he holds his cards. Or you may only realize she was tense when she suddenly relaxes.

Like the student, another sign of tension is nervousness.

People sometimes mask their nervousness by distracting themselves. It’s rude to hum at the table, but any kind of rhythmic movement might be the equivalent of humming.

Someone who is trying to burn off their energy may be excited. They also may be about to lose their paycheck. It’s an attempt to remain calm.

A player who is clearly excited may only be thrilled to be in a game with you. Or they may have the best hole cards of their lives.

Some Players Think Out Loud

Everyone reveals they are deep in thought now and then. That’s normal. In a game where strategy is critical, it’s a sign someone is considering as many possibilities as possible.

One tell you may see often is when a player stares at the table after the flop. They probably think they’ve lost this hand and want a way out.

Several tells are intentional. Players may try to intimidate each other with subtle gestures. Maybe it’s how he pushes the chips in hard. Maybe she’s asking for a recount.

It might also be a test. They want to see how you react. Staring at other people intensely is not only rude, but it’s also a classic intimidation technique.

Anyone who delays the game for any reason may be buying time to think. Someone who plays through the hand with little interest may already be thinking about the next hand.

When a player folds, what does he do next while everyone else finishes the hand? Are they watching you, studying the way you handle your cards? Are they paying close attention to the bets?

What players do while waiting for the next round of cards could reveal what they are feeling or thinking.

Conclusion

It’s a good idea to browse lists of poker tells published on the Internet. You may have missed something in your last game. Having an idea of what to look for could make a difference in the next game.

A neutral player reveals as little as possible. Neutral players don’t try to intimidate other players. A neutral player may still bluff or make a bold play at any time.

Neutral play is hard to read. It takes practice. Neutral players may seem very reserved or very relaxed. A good way to describe neutral play is to set one’s feelings aside for the duration of the game.

Neutral play is a sign of experience and confidence in one’s skill. Beginning players learn best from neutral players.

Researchers have found that people more accurately understand mood when they examine body language, rather than facial expressions. “When people rated a whole image, it was clear to them – they saw winners and losers,” said Hillel Aviezer, now an assistant professor of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “When you see the faces alone, it is really confusing.”

Aviezer was a postdoctoral student at Princeton University and a co-author of a paper on the subject that was presented to the Journal of Science recently. His research was aimed at how accurately the average person is able to gauge mood from facial expressions and body language in others.

45 undergrad students were drafted in for the tests, during which one group were shown photographs of tennis players’ full body and another of faces only. A third group were shown only body shots. In all cases the images were chosen to project a series of emotions such as anger, triumph, frustration and joy. The students were then asked to identify the emotions.

The results showed that those groups who studied the full body and body-only images were able to more accurately identify the subject's emotional state, whereas those undergrads who saw only the facial images were only right 50 percent of the time.

How poker players experienced in identifying and acting on ‘tells' would fare in such a test would make a truly interesting research project.

Unwitting Body Language In Poker Tournaments

Interestingly, those students who had access to the full body and face shots did not realise that they had made their assessment based on the whole image. 53 percent of them believed the face part of the image had enabled them to gauge the mood.

In another experiment, images that gave conflicting signals were used, such as an angry body but a happy face. In these cases, the students studying the images tended to base their assessment on the body posture, not the face.

Unwitting Body Language In Poker Games