What is best poker face?

[Andy Nguyen]

An interesting finding for many QN members who are experienced poker players or people just get into the game.

A new study finds that a resolutely neutral facial expression may not be the best strategy when playing poker. “Surprisingly, we find that threatening face information has little influence on wagering behavior, but faces relaying positive emotional characteristics impact peoples’ decisions,” write Erik J. Schlicht, Shinsuke Shimojo, Colin F. Camerer, Peter Battaglia, and Ken Nakayama. Opponents of “emotionally positive” players mistakenly folded more often. The authors conclude that “the best ‘poker face’ for bluffing may not be a neutral face, but rather a face that contains emotional correlates of trustworthiness.”

When Is a Poker Face Not a Poker Face? - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com

 

[Scooot]

For anyone that plays or starts playing poker, please take this with a HUGE grain of salt.

The study is interesting in its own right but I dont' think it something to be taken literally at the poker table. And it's not something I'd recommend as a common "strategy" for anyone that is playing poker.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Ok, Scott so since you commented on this and are a poker player, what is your poker face and what kind of poker face works best from your experience?

If I'm to play poke, I will wear a Zoro mask. Hey, good luck guessing my hand, players.

 

[Connor]

In my experience it all depends on your opponents and their level of experience.

 

[Scooot]

For starters, having a "poker face" isn't a big requirement for winning at poker and it use to be a common misconception, although I think that has faded a bit these days.

As a player you should try and give off as little as possible. Not only from the expression on your face but from a number of things:

Where you're eyes look
How fast you check/call/raise or fold
What chips you use to size you bets
How you place your chips in the pot
If you're leaning forward or backward
If you're talkative or quiet at the table
etc...

Those things I listed above are just actual physical "tells". Those are the things that normal people think of when they talk about "reading" a player and giving of some indication of hand strength/weakness.


The study linked in the first post indicates that players exhibiting XYZ emotion might tend to get called more or less frequently than when showing other emotional characteristics...or no emtional characteristics for that matter. And this I'm sure is true but that doensn't mean it's a good idea to try at a poker table.

Players will pick up on this and use it against you, I proimse. Not every player plays the same way and emits the same "tells". So because of this, players are observant of the things I listed above and try and correlate your play to your physical tendancies.

For example, when most players start out, they tend to act the opposite of what they really want to happen.

If the player has a strong hand, he acts weak by avoiding eye contact, being quiet, looking nervous etc, trying to get a call from the opponent.

On the flip side, if he is bluffing he might act confidently by flinging chips (splashing) into the pot, talking with the opponent, staring him down directly in the eyes, leaning back, looking comfortable.

It's the whole Weak means Strong....Strong means Weak arguement. And most players are well versed in this line of thinking.

You can take that one step further and do just the opposite to a smart observant player and act exactly like you feel and try and "level" your opponent. So you purposely look weak when your hand is weak and strong when youre hand is strong.

This can go back and forth, level on top of level. The smarter player will be just one level of thinking above the other...it's sort of a mind game if you will.


The only problem with engaging in this activity is that you give off information. And poker is a game of incomplete information and your opponents are looking to gain as much information as possible to make better decesions about the game.

They get this information from what you look like, how you act, your betting patterns, how you valuate your hand, how often your mixed up in a pot, if your playing aggressively or passively, if you have shown down bluffs etc....all this stuff is used as information to paint a picture of what type of player you are. It is your job to give off as little as possible so they have less to work with.

So when sitting at a table, you should never act in one manner or another and try to level your opponent. By acting the same in all circumstances, you effectively give off no information that can be used against you. Yes, you could try and "out fake" your opponent and it might even show dividends in the short term....but once that happens, all players at the table can register that information and use it against you on later hands.


Wearing a zoro mask will not excempt you from tells. It would however, show that you are a less experienced player that is too worried about giving a physical tell away, which arn't even the biggest "tells" in poker....thus actually giving away some information about how you'll play.

Watching what a player does in the context of the hand gives away much more information than watching what his face looks like so if you see a player wearing a mask...or a hoodie, hat, shades and covers his mouth with his hands...it usually means he's watched a couple hours of poker on TV and thinks he has the game figured out.

So as a player, novice or otherwise, I'd suggest trying to give of no physical information by "tricking" your opponents with fake manorisms and ticks. Focus on playing the same way in all cirumstances and make them guess.

 

[alain]

The best poker face is the face of "Jesus".

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Wearing a zoro mask will not excempt you from tells. It would however, show that you are a less experienced player that is too worried about giving a physical tell away, which arn't even the biggest "tells" in poker....thus actually giving away some information about how you'll play.

There goes my zoro plan.
Perhaps a Lady Gaga mask will work better? My plan is to use the absurdity or scariness of the mask to distract my opponents from my inexperience (read no experience).

But on a serious note, shouldn't all of what you say points to the advantages of online poker where you can scale your game and the stake is pretty high as well.

 

[Scooot]

There goes my zoro plan.

But on a serious note, shouldn't all of what you say points to the advantages of online poker where you can scale your game and the stake is pretty high as well.

I don't really understand what you're asking here?

There are a few advantages of online poker when compared to live poker.

Mainly that you can play MANY more hands.

In a casino, you only can play at one table and are generally dealt abotu 30-35 hands an hour.

Online each table you play, you are dealt about 80-100 hands an hour. You can also play as many tables as you can keep up with. Some people can play 24 tables at a time. This would generate 2,400 hands an hour online...compared to 30 or 35 at a casino. And if you make an average of $.30 a hand then...well online > live for poker.

You also get to play in the comfort of your own home. Don't have to get in your car and drive the casino. park. Get on the wait list. Find your table. Pay a higher rake. etc.


As far as "tells" go. There are many tells online...they are just routed in the fundamentals of the game itself. If you're playing online, you want to observe key aspects of your opponents play that will help indicate what they're doing.

So you watch things like:

What % of hands they are playing from certain positions (VPIP)
What % of hands they are raising from certain positions (preflop raise %)
What % of flops they are betting at when they raised preflop (cbet %)
How often they check/raise the flop
Betting patterns in sizing and frequency
Watch the hands they showdown...are they bluffing or valuebetting?


There is a ton of information you can gather on your opponents to better model their play. And your job is to alter and adapt your strategy to best fit theirs so it can gain you an advantage when playing with them.

Being able to observe and use this information is how professional poker players "read" their opponents, both live and online. So there are inherent tells in poker no matter what and the ones I speak about in this post are more important to a players success than the ones discuessed earlier in this thread.