Even people who never play poker have talked about how important getting a good poker face is, and it can be helpful in plenty of situations other than the poker table. For example, many people in the world of business are told to keep a great poker face, because they need to keep themselves calm and stoic with their emotions in check. They might be receiving the deal of a lifetime that is sending their heart pumping, but they can’t let anyone else at the table know that. Poker faces are useful everywhere, but if you don’t have one you can still keep your expression to yourself in an online casino, check here for your options.
Lady Gaga, Mike McDonald, Stephen Chidwick, and Phil Ivey have their legendary poker faces in common with one another, and Lady Gaga skyrocketed the term when she released the 2008 hit, ‘Poker Face’. While the song isn’t about poker and keeping a steady face during a game, and more about sexually suggestive lyrics, many people sang about the term.
If you type “poker face definition” into a search engine, you will get the following: “an impassive countenance that covers one’s genuine feelings.” In terms of poker, a poker face is an emotionally neutral face that is expressionless. You might be begging for your opponents to react to your bluff in a certain way, or you might be over the moon because of how great your starting hand is… but you can show that on your face.
If you think about someone with a poker face, you might think about someone who is making every effort to seem emotionless, or you might think about someone who is stoic and impassive to the world around them. But a poker face can be anything you want it to be.
You can try to unnerve your opponents with a big smile, always look like you are thinking really hard about something, or just seem like you are moments away from breaking down into tears. It doesn’t really matter what your poker face is, so long as it is consistent and you can avoid showing your true emotions while wearing it.
Why Do You Need A Poker Face?
Poker is a game where you see everyone’s hand in very specific conditions, and what you have in your hand isn’t as important as what people think you have in your hand. Poker is a game of the mind as you try to deal with partial information and high stakes. This means that you need to be analyzing your opponent’s just as much as your own strategy.
Little cues like ‘tells’, the body language of the poker player, the size of their wager, their playing style, and all of those little movements are what give people information. Then you can make a guess based on how they are bluffing and if what they are presenting to the world is what they have in their hands. A lot of these tells in poker are going to be tells that are physiological and automatic, for example when some players have a very good hand, their hands start to tremble automatically. For the other players at the table, this can give away that something has the player excited about their hand. But a good poker face can be learned.
How To Get And Keep A Good Poker Face
You can learn the skills needed to get a good poker face, but it will take some serious time and effort on your part. It is very easy to react to the world and circumstances around you, and it can be very hard to learn to shut that side of yourself down and keep the same face no matter what is happening.
Practicing in front of a mirror can be very helpful, as can practicing whenever something very good or bad happens in your life. Additionally, if you don’t just want to look like you have a good poker face, but also want to act like you are detached and emotionless, you can research the ways of the stoic.
It can be hard to keep a poker face even if you are by yourself, but with enough practice you will be able to enter your next casino game with a poker face that your opponents won’t be able to decipher too easily. That might be the thing that gets you the win in the end!