Dr Paul Seager

Poker is more than just a game of cards. A successful player needs to be able to analyse situations, assess players and keep focus on play for hours at a time. One of the biggest problems poker players face, from beginners to pros (unless you’re Allen Cunningham!), is keeping a high level of concentration.
As poker players we’re bombarded with so much information from so many sources, that it’s not always possible to take in the information we should be paying attention to (i.e what your opponents are doing). If you find this hard to believe, next time you play stop yourself at a random point in the game and write down as much information as possible that you’ve gleaned about your opponents. Who’s the rock or maniac of the table? How often has the button raised your big blind? How often has the small blind limped in? What kind of starting hands do they play based on the showdowns you’ve seen? Chances are your information isn’t as complete as it should be.
Psychological studies suggest that humans can concentrate fully for only about 30 to 60 minutes at a time, though it may vary slightly from person to person. This has the potential to hamper your ability to go deep in tournaments, or to come out winning from a long cash session.
The length of time you can concentrate can be shortened considerably, by at least four different factors:

1. Boredom. When you’re bored, your attention drifts more quickly than usual. If you’re getting a bad run of cards or you’re playing tight due to the number of maniacs at your table, you won’t be playing many hands, and very soon you may not be paying as close attention to your opponents as you should be.

2. Environment. Distractions in your poker-playing environment pull your attention away from the task at hand. These can include kids, email and the internet when playing online, or noise, passers-by or even a mouthy opponent in a cardroom.

3. Physical state. If you eat a big meal before playing, your digestive system will divert resources away from your brain to aid digestion. Not sleeping well, feeling ill, or not being as physically fit as you should be, may also contribute to a deficit in your concentration levels.

4. Mental state. Make sure you’re in the right frame of mind to play. If you’re not mentally focused, lacking the motivation to play, or not feeling good about yourself, then it’s probably best not to play. All these factors can lead to low self-esteem and low self-confidence, and this in turn is likely to lead to poor concentration.

Regular exercise
The good news is that it’s possible to improve your powers of concentration, and this is precisely what the professional players have done. But be warned, your concentration is like a muscle – it needs to be exercised to build strength, and this will take time and effort. Here are four effective ways to do this:

• Make notes. This is a sure way to stay focused on the task in hand and it’s easy to do on the internet where most major sites have note-taking facilities. Make a record of things like your opponents’ starting hands and where they play them from; whether they limp in a lot or always come in with a raise and, if so, the size of the raise. This will stop you being distracted by emails and the internet, as one activity is incompatible with the other.

• Narrow your focus of attention. It’s difficult when you’re starting out to focus on all of your opponents at the table – such information ”Your concentration is like a muscle – it needs to be exercised to build strength” overload will probably leave your head in a spin, and be more likely to lessen your concentration skills. Instead, reduce the number of things you focus on. Start off by concentrating on two players: the person who’s on the button to your big blind, and the person who will be the big blind when you’re on the button. Do they always raise you, or do they vigorously defend their blind?
Once this becomes an automatic process, add another factor to your focus of attention – but not until then. It will take time to achieve this, but if you work at it your concentration will improve and you’ll eventually be able to process enough information about all of your opponents to make you a winning poker player.

• Self-talk. Silently talk to yourself after every hand. Analyse the hand you’ve just seen or played. Tell yourself what was good and bad about it. Mentally reward yourself when you’ve done something good (like spotting a ‘tell’). The principles of behavioural psychology tell us that a reward is the surest way to get someone (yourself) to repeat a behaviour – you want to get into the habit of doing good things at the poker table.

If you take all this on board, you’ll soon be rivalling Allen Cunningham in the concentration stakes!

Due to an innate psychological ‘need to belong’, the ties that bind us all to groups – regardless of our social standing, ethnicity or gender – are incredibly strong and run very deep. Being a member of a group can enable us to accomplish feats that we could not do alone; it can give us a sense of safety and mental well-being, and may supply us with the support we need in times of crisis.
But group membership can also come at a heavy price, too. We may be prevented from making good decisions simply because we have formed a strong bond with other members of a group and don’t want to do anything that might hurt them. Equally, we may find ourselves being manipulated unconsciously by what other members of the group are doing, simply because we don’t want to incur their displeasure by acting differently.
It happens in the real world all the time: you only have to look at the example of cults (think ‘Jonestown Massacre’ or ‘Heavens Gate’), where ordinary, good people do extraordinarily bad things, simply because they don’t want the rest of the group to look unkindly upon them.
As it is in life, so goes it at the poker table. If you want to be a winning player, you can’t afford to let yourself fall prey to group influences. Have you ever found yourself passing your hand quickly because that’s what the rest of the table is doing? Have you ever found yourself raising only two times the big blind because everyone else is? And have you ever found yourself joining in the general table chat because the rest of the table is nattering away, even though you’re not comfortable doing so?
If you have, then you’ve fallen prey to the power of the group. If you want to play your own winning game, you need to be able to throw off the binding shackles of the ‘table norm’; if you don’t, you won’t be able to make good, solid poker decisions and may miss out on some great opportunities. Instead you’ll simply be conforming to what you think the rest of the table wants you to do, and you’ll be worried that if you don’t, they might start to pick on you (which isn’t good, especially if you’re a short-stack).

Brutally honest
Sometimes it’s hard to realise when all this is happening. However, there is one straightforward way to identify when it is, though it requires you to be brutally honest with yourself. You must be prepared to justify your every move or action. Ask yourself why you just did what you did. Was it because you thought it was tactically sound, or was it because of what the rest of the table had been doing? You may not like the answer you get, but it will help you to avoid becoming one of the sheep at the table.
Instead of being a sheep, you want to become the wolf in the fold, and you can use the group dynamics of the poker table to your advantage to do this.
One way to do this is to introduce some deliberate but atypical actions into your play. So, if you notice that the rest of the table has set a norm of raising three times the big blind, when you next raise, make it four times the big blind. Amazingly you’ll find that after you’ve done this three or four times in a row, one or two of the other players will start to follow suit and, before long, over the course of a session, it’s likely to become the table norm. In this way, you could induce the weaker or more aggressive players to over-commit themselves with the size of their raise, and you’ll be ready to pounce with your premium hand.
Another way to use group dynamics to your advantage is to watch out for signs of what psychologists refer to as ‘social loafing’. In the real world, this is where people get more out of the group to which they belong than they actually put in. At the poker table, especially during a single-table sit-and-go, this translates into players with a medium-to-small stack simply sitting back and waiting for either the more loose/ aggressive players to knock themselves out, or for the big stacks to take care of the smaller stacks.
These ‘social loafers’ want to get as far up the money ladder as they can, while minimising their risk of being knocked out. Although it makes good tactical sense, if you’re astute, you can use this knowledge to your advantage. Identify these players and put pressure on them by, for example, consistently raising their big blinds and forcing them out of their comfort zone. If they’re being made to take actions that are not part of their normal game, they’ll be much more likely to make mistakes upon which you, as the wolf, can capitalise.
However, be wary – make sure you look out for bigger wolves at your table, especially if they’re dressed in sheep’s clothing!

One of the many fun things about poker is that it gives us a license to lie, a practice which is generally frowned upon in polite society. In fact, from an early age, we are socialised to tell the truth, so much so that we start to assume that everyone else tells the truth as well – psychologists refer to this as the ‘truth bias’. Consequently, when we come to figuring out whether or not someone is lying to us, we are not very good at it.
Indeed, research suggests that generally we’re no better than a 50/50 chance at spotting when someone is pulling the wool over our eyes – so in poker terms, maybe the next time you’re trying to figure out if someone is bluffing you, you should simply flip a coin!
However, before you start to despair and reach for your lucky two pence coin, be assured that there are things you can do to improve your ability to spot when you’re being bluffed. The first thing to do is to realise that you’re probably not as good at spotting a lie as you think you are. This realisation should give you pause and stop you from making any rash decisions.
Your second lesson in spotting a bluff is to avoid using stereotypical nonverbal cues. Generally speaking, people believe that cues such as a lack of eye contact, and nervous shifting of the body, are reliably linked to when a person is lying. Research has shown that this is not true. In fact, a good liar knows you are looking for the former and may well hold your eye contact slightly longer than normal in order to reassure you that they are being honest.
As for the nervous shifting, when we tell a lie, especially an unrehearsed one, we have to put in more ‘cognitive effort’, and, simply put, this diverts energy away from our normal body movements and into the brain instead. So, when we lie, we generally tend to move our body less than when we’re telling the truth.
Thirdly, try and avoid using any specific non-verbal cues: instead, try to view your opponent more holistically. That is to say, watch them when they are acting naturally (and honestly) and observe their overall demeanour – their whole being and not just one or two specific areas of their body (psychologists refer to this as the ‘honest baseline’). Then, when it comes to a point in the play when they’ve put in a bet and you’re not sure whether they’re bluffing you or not, try to compare their current demeanour to their honest baseline that you’ve observed earlier.
If you instinctively feel that there is a difference, then there is probably something going on – they could be bluffing you, but maybe they’ve got a monster hand and are trying to sucker you into coming over the top of them. The ‘honest baseline’ is a reliable method for detecting deception, but you need to be very observant to use it effectively.

Raised voices
Another way to spot your opponent’s bluffing is to listen to what they are saying. Deception experts generally agree that what people say, and the way in which they say it, is a reliable and effective way to spot a fib. Again, with practise, you will notice that when people are being honest, their speech is more immediate in its tone – for example, ‘I am a good player and don’t need to bluff.’
However, when they are being deceptive, they try to remove themselves from the statement – ‘a player of my calibre doesn’t need to bluff’ – in this case by not referring to themselves in the first person. Also, listen out ”When we lie, we tend to move our body less than when we’re telling the truth” for the pitch of an opponent’s voice when they say something like, ‘I raise’. This will give you access to another reliable finding from deception studies – namely, that when we lie, the pitch of our voice raises slightly.
However, there is some worry that players who know all about deception (and, believe me, there is far more to it than I’ve had chance to outline here!) will be able to use it against you – that is, they can give off ‘false tells’. Well, this is possible but highly unlikely, especially if you avoid looking for the stereotypical cues. Unless you’re up against a world class expert, the chances are that the best player will only be able to fake one or two cues at a time.
Therefore, what you need to do is to base your read of an opponent on a cluster of cues. The more cues that are present, the more likely there is some kind of deception going on. This way, even if your opponent is faking a couple of the cues, you shouldn’t be fooled.
Nevertheless, you should bear in mind that honing your detection skills will take time to master, but it’s worth it in the long run. So put away your lucky coin and engage all of your senses instead: this is the way to becoming a master bluff-spotter!

Watching poker on TV, it’s constantly amazing to see the quality of decisions made by some of the top pros – from their ability to make a good call with only middle pair, to their uncanny knack of laying down big hands pre-flop. It’s something we aspiring poker players can only dream of doing. Psychologically speaking, however, it’s much more interesting to try to discover exactly what it is that allows the likes of Devilfish and Phil Hellmuth to make such plays: is it their years of experience, knowledge of the game and number of hands they’ve played, or might it be something a little more metaphysical, such as an inner voice they listen to – often referred to as intuition.
There are many self-help books out there claiming that the quality of the decisions in our daily lives can be improved by using intuition, but none of them are really able to put their finger on quite what intuition is or how it works. Nevertheless, it seems that intuition is a trait or an ability that we all aspire to have – in fact, many top companies now list it as an important quality on their job descriptions.
One distinguished author, Professor Stuart Sutherland, even claims that we would rather be classified as lazy or selfish than as having poor intuition!
Intuition is generally characterised as a non- conscious, rapidly produced decision, which involves using information from a diverse number of different sources, and which has some kind of emotion attached to it. We tend to make intuitive decisions (as opposed to more ‘rational’ decisions) when we are under some kind of time pressure (this might ring a few bells with internet players), and the decision is one we would struggle to explain out loud to another person.

Sources of information
Intuition draws upon a vast array of information to draw a conclusion and often from things we’re not consciously aware of. It could be drawing on something you read two weeks ago, something you saw on TV last night, or something someone said to you four months ago that the rational part of your brain had long since forgotten about. And when we do reach our intuitive conclusion, there’s an emotion accompanying it, like a feeling of overwhelming happiness that our decision is the right one, or a sense of dread and despondency.
However, assuming that intuition does in fact exist (and there are those who claim there is no such thing), there is still a large amount of disagreement as to the quality of intuitive judgements. It is not necessarily the case that using your intuition will lead to a good decision. In fact, many people claim that rational decision-making – where the steps to reach a decision are transparent – leads to a much better quality of outcome.
Intuition can be a double- edged sword, and one that is honed by the fallibility of our memory. When we make an intuitive judgement and it turns out to be a good decision, we make a mental note to rely on our intuition in future. However, when the decision turns out to be a poor one, we very quickly forget about it. It’s quite easy to relate this to the poker table; for example, you have a strong draw post-flop and you’re not getting the correct odds to call, but you stick your chips in the middle anyway because you have a gut feeling you will hit one of your outs.
When your card does come, you’ll grin, pat yourself on the back and comment to anyone within earshot that your intuition told you to make the call. But when it all goes pear-shaped and you lose a big pot, you’ll very quickly and conveniently forget your ‘intuitive’ failure.

Learning process
However, assuming that intuition can lead to good quality decisions, is it possible for us to hone our intuition? Some researchers claim that it is, simply because intuition actually derives from our expertise in a given field. By building up a vast database of domain- specific information, for example, by playing poker for several hours every day (and assuming that we explicitly learn from such experiences), we will automatically make better decisions.
So when faced with a re- raise from a tight player, we intuitively know to fold A-K pre-flop unless we are ready to race. But we won’t always be able to articulate as to how we have arrived at our decision, we’ll just ‘know’ that it was the right one. Unfortunately, the bad news is that researchers also claim that we need at least a 10-year period for achieving the necessary level of expertise.
So, having put in the time, perhaps Hellmuth and Devilfish can place more faith in their inner voice than most. For the rest of us, perhaps we should treat our intuition with a little more caution, and listen to our iPods sooner than our inner voice that’s whispering ‘call that all-in with bottom pair’.

Most human beings dislike uncertainty intensely, and winning poker players are no different. They prefer to be sure they’re ahead before committing their precious chips to the pot.

As you might expect, uncertainty creates stress, which in turn disrupts thought processes and stops players from performing to the best of their abilities. Lack of information, or conflicting information, are the main causes of such uncertainty, and when faced with a big decision at the poker table one thing you want to avoid is doubt.
Psychologically speaking, we, as humans, have mental representations (referred to as ‘scripts’) stored in our memory for all anticipated situations that we find ourselves in, and this helps to reduce our feelings of uncertainty. For example, each time you go into a restaurant, instead of having to start from scratch and figure out what you need to do, you unconsciously call up a ‘script’ for this event and instantly know what needs to be done and how people will act. If the waiter gave you the bill before you’d even sat down, let alone ordered, you’d be immediately confused as your internal script tells you that this is not the way things should be.
These principles can easily be applied to the game of poker. Try enhancing your chances by causing confusion in your opponents by messing with their ‘scripts’. You can even try it out online. Given that players have a limited time to make each decision, if you can cause uncertainty in your opponent it’s very possible to get them to err on the side of caution and fold their winning hand (assuming they don’t have a ‘monster’).
For example, your opponent has just put in a continuation bet post-flop and the action is on you. You want to make a re-raise bluff to steal the pot. Wisdom has it that the longer a player is taking to make a decision, the more likely they are to fold. Instead of putting in a considered re-raise, leave your bet until the last moment as this will have the effect of invoking the ‘script’ in your opponent that you are going to fold. Your last-second bet will then have them mentally scrambling to decide what to do.
The added time-pressure is even more likely to make them err on the side of caution and fold – even though they may have the best hand. This isn’t guaranteed to work, of course, and it’s essential you consider all the normal information at your disposal before making a move.

Mind over matter
Causing confusion in your opponents is a good way to give you an edge, especially against intermediate players. For example, take the convention touted by many poker tomes that you should always raise by the same amount to prevent opponents from differentiating your holding. Psychologically speaking, it can be more effective to vary your bets to keep your opponents in a state of confusion. If you vary it enough – seemingly at random – they will stop trying to see a pattern in your play, which will reduce the chance of them ‘working you out’.
However, you need to keep your raises truly random if you want to try this out. Humans are incredibly bad at generating random sequences, so even when you think you’re being random there is normally some kind of fixed pattern you’re subconsciously following (which may be why poker books tell us to keep the bets the same size!). To avoid this trap, generate a random sequence of raises in advance of playing, or rely on something else to generate the size of the raise for you (e.g. look at where the second hand is on your watch: 0-15 seconds equals a raise of twoand- a-half times the big blind, 16-30 seconds equals a raise of three-and-a-quarter times the big blind, etc).
Another way to unbalance your opponents is to send out conflicting messages. You can be as subtle or as blatant about this as you see fit. For example, when first sitting down at a sit-and-go table online (assuming you’ve never played with the players before), you could type in to the chat box something along the lines of: ‘I hope you’re all going to be kind to me tonight – this is my first game online.’
Whether they initially believe it or not, you’ve sown the seed that you’re a new player (and first impressions are difficult to dislodge), so when you make a ‘squeeze’ play later on, your opponent, who has to decide whether or not to call you, will be uncertain whether this so-called new player is capable of making such a move. As the time bar ebbs away, they will most likely take the safe option and fold – provided they’re a good player, and not a maniac or a calling station.
Anything you can do to stop your opponents working you out is a good thing, and messing with their heads through the use of confusion and false information is an excellent method. Just make sure you don’t confuse yourself in the process!

In poker you’ll hear the phrase ‘table captain’ quite regularly, more often than not when Tony G is playing, but it’s quite difficult to pin down exactly what the term means and involves. Traditionally a captain is appointed, though not always democratically, and has complete authority of those under him – he doesn’t usually appoint himself.
In poker, the opposite is true – a person by their very actions decides that they will try to take control of the table and thereby gain an advantage.

However, it’s debatable as to just how much of a benefit being the table captain is. In the animal world, being the leader of the pack affords you many advantages – first dibs at food and females for starters.
Occasionally you might be required to have a bit of a scrap with a rival that might result in the odd broken bone or two, but the gains are usually worth it (provided you’re not mortally wounded, of course!). But this alpha male situation doesn’t necessarily translate to the world of poker.

Traditionally, the table captain (which I’ll abbreviate to TC from hereon) is a trash- talker who attempts, either through verbal bullying (think Tony G) or deceptively friendly banter (think Daniel Negreanu), to put you in a state of mind that makes you more vulnerable to giving your chips away. On rare occasions you get the silent assassin TC (think Surinder Sunar) who says nothing, but bullies through their actions, such as constantly raising pots.
In psychological terms, all are attempting to take on the role of autocratic leader. They dictate the terms and conditions of the situation to all around them. However, history has shown us that ultimately, autocratic leaders are not terribly successful.

What comes naturally
Now you might argue that given the success of the three players mentioned, becoming a table captain is advantageous, but this is not necessarily the case. For the most part, the successful table captains are just doing what comes naturally to them: Tony G is a natural extrovert, Daniel Negreanu a natural socialite, and Surinder Sunar a studious introvert. But it would probably be a psychological disaster if Surinder decided to adopt Tony’s approach.
It is likely that much of his attention capacity would be expended in overriding his natural instinct, leaving him with limited resources to devote to his poker playing. This disaster would likely be magnified tenfold for someone with even less skill.

It’s a questionable tactic as to whether you should want to become TC because you’re attracting attention to yourself, and, if you’re too aggressive, effectively begging someone to take a shot at you. And while a few of the early bullets might miss, there’s probably one out there with your name on it.
The only time this might not be true is if you’re seated at a table of absolute rocks, which doesn’t happen too often. Psychologically speaking, if it’s not your natural way of playing the game, don’t attempt to take on the role of TC.

So what do you do if you are faced with a wannabe TC at your table? If they’re a verbal bully, iPod and earphones might help, though you may miss out on a lot of useful information from other players at the table. So perhaps following these psychologically sound tips for combatting different types of TC would be more profitable.

1. Closely scrutinise the players at your table and identify if there is a TC and what style they’re employing. Some are quicker and easier to spot than others. Simply understanding that one is present can help you adjust your game to combat them.

2. Unless your style is similar to theirs, i.e. you like to talk at the table and the TC is a socialite, don’t be sucked into their way of playing the game as you’ll spend too much of your precious mental resources adjusting. This increases the chance that you will not be playing your ‘A’ game. It can be difficult to avoid because human instinct is to want to be liked by others, and resisting their style will make you feel uncomfortable. Recognise this, and be comfortable being uncomfortable. Don’t let Daniel become your friend!

3. If you’re going to ‘take on’ the TC, make sure where possible that you have the goods. It’s obvious, but don’t try and out-bluff a verbal bully: if you get caught, your situation will be 10 times worse, and you’ll never hear the end of it. It’s far better to grit your teeth – try some relaxation techniques – and bide your time. Be sustained by a mental picture of the smile being wiped off their face when you do eventually take them down.

And remember this final thought – if the TC gets too out of hand you can always create a mutiny! The chances are other players are suffering too. A simple phrase such as, ‘Is anyone else getting fed up with X’ may just do the trick and rein them in.

Novice and intermediate poker players are usually kept happy playing on the internet and getting involved in friendly home games, but the more they play, the more likely it is that they wonder how their newfound skills would fare in a casino or specialist cardroom.
Playing live for the first time is seen by many as a daunting experience, and an internal cost-benefit analysis (for example, the anticipated stress of the occasion versus the amount of pleasure and money that will be derived) usually means that the risks outweigh the rewards. As a result many players end up never graduating to a bricks- and-mortar game.

However, you really shouldn’t be put off by the perceived levels of anxiety and pressure that you believe playing in a casino might bring. Believe it or not, being stressed will actually be good for your game – so long as you can keep it within manageable levels, which the majority of us are actually more than capable of doing.
There’s a lovely psychological idea called the ‘Yerkes- Dodson Inverted “U” Law’ which proposes that being somewhat stressed will actually lead to a much better performance than not being put under any pressure. Picture a graph in your head: the horizontal axis represents levels of stress, from none (on the left hand side) to a lot (on the right hand side); the vertical axis represents your levels of performance, from poor at the bottom to optimal at the top. Now place an upside-down ‘U’ on the graph and stretch it slightly sideways.
This graph now shows how stress can help your game. A lack of stress (which is at the point where the two axes meet) means a poor performance, as does a lot of stress; but the point in the middle, which represents moderate stress, actually indicates the best levels of performance. So, don’t be put off playing a live game simply because it intimidates you. Embrace it! A reasonable amount of stress is actually good for you.

All right on the night
Another thing that players often worry about is whether they can handle the pressure of having to shuffle and deal in front of strangers, even though they know that they’re more than capable of doing it at their home games. Well, again psychology tells us that everything will actually work out okay because of something called social facilitation (SF) – this can be used to predict how well we will perform in front of an audience. If we spend a lot of time practising a skill, and get to a level where we are very good at it, SF tells us that we will actually perform well, often much better, in front of a crowd of people.
However, if our skill is unrehearsed and of a generally poor level, then SF says that we will perform the task badly in front of other people. Therefore, if you can shuffle and deal well in your home games, you will really have nothing to worry about in a casino: but if you can’t, then it’s worth putting in a good level of practice before making the trip.

Swimming with sharks
Players new to live poker may also see the casino as a threatening environment, populated by card sharks just waiting to pick them up for transgressing the cardroom’s etiquette. Well, these worries can also easily be bypassed.

For example, if you’re planning on playing your first tournament in two weeks time, it would be beneficial to take a trip to the cardroom the week before in order to get used to the layout of the place. It will give you a chance to soak up the atmosphere, gauge the type of people who frequent the place and, if possible, get your registration taken care of well in advance.
Visiting a place for the second time is so much less threatening than it is the first time and this will help to take away some of the stress from your first game. It will also be a good opportunity to familiarise yourself with the rules of the poker room and this will reduce the likelihood of you getting harangued or penalised for any errant behaviour.

Numbers game
And if you’re still worried about the intimidating locals, it might be an idea to persuade a friend to go with you – there’s always safety in numbers. Just knowing there is a friendly face or two to ‘watch your back’ and to whom you can turn to for a reassuring chat, will help to reduce your stress levels no end. However, you will quickly realise that 99 percent of the people in the casino are actually very friendly and that you really had nothing to worry about in the first place.

Ultimately, familiarity and practice can reduce just about all of your excess levels of stress: the more you go and play live, the more comfortable you will feel. However, remember not to get rid of the stress altogether, as your performance at the table may well suffer!

There’s some debate in poker about whether fixing your opponent with a steely gaze has any real value in terms of making you a more successful player. If we’re to believe fictional portrayals of poker games (think Bond vs Le Chiffre in Casino Royale), a stare-down with a rival will either lead to the hero spotting a vital ‘tell’, which allows them to win a vast quantity of cash (and to triumph over evil!), or intimidate their foe into folding their (usually winning) hand.

However, watching pro poker players on TV shows us something very different: many of them are reluctant to engage in a staring match, preferring not to hold the gaze of an opponent for fear of giving something away. So, is the ‘stare-down’ really of any use?

As a general rule, in the course of normal polite conversation with another person (though it may vary depending on how well we know them), we spend about 60 percent of the time looking at them (usually in bursts of about three seconds), although direct eye contact with the other person only occurs about 30 percent of the time (lasting, on average, for about one second).

From a psychological perspective, engaging in intense and direct eye contact (a stare-down) with another person sends out very specific messages: on one level it signals that we think we are the dominant person in the communication, and on another level it signals our aggressive intent.

Staring contest

If you’re employing a stare- down to try to intimidate an opponent, its effects will depend to a great extent on the nature of your opponent. If they’re naturally aggressive, they may see it as a challenge (think red rag to a bull) and you can expect them to target their aggression specifically towards you in return (which could extend to the remainder of the game).

In this scenario you’re in real danger of gaining their enmity and run the risk of putting yourself in their line of fire. If so, make sure you’re really equipped to deal with the consequences.

However, if they’re more passive (or perhaps just more polite), they may feel uncomfortable from your stare and will be more likely to break eye contact first. This will probably have the effect of making them wary of you and keeping them out of your way in the future (except when they have a monster hand, of course).

On the other hand, if the stare-down is an attempt to pick up a ‘tell’ on your opponent, there are many things that you need to consider. For example, how good a player and actor they are. That is, do they know the signs that you’re looking for and are they able to fake them? If you rate them highly, then you should be wary of any tells that you think you’ve spotted. Also, how closely have you been paying attention to your opponent?
One of the things to look for is any change from their normal behaviour. But if you don’t know how they act normally, then looking for tells isn’t very useful. A final thing to consider is how sensitive a person they are. For example, you’re giving them your best ‘stare’ and you notice that their finger starts to tap on the table; can you really be sure this is a ‘tell’ that they have a weak hand, or is it simply a nervous reaction to your close scrutiny?

The joker
One tell that sometimes appears as a result of a stare-down is a smile. Now, if you can spot the difference between a genuine smile (they are confident that they have you beat) and a fake smile (they are showing false bravado and you probably have them beat), it could mean the difference between doubling up or crashing out of a tournament.

Basically, a genuine smile will engage the zygomatic major muscle, which causes ‘crow’s feet’ wrinkles at the corner of the eyes and bagged skin below the eyes. In addition, it pulls up the corners of the lips towards the cheekbones and, in turn, the cheeks also rise slightly. A fake smile will rarely show these features.

Naturally, there may be occasions when you find yourself on the wrong end of a stare-down and you may be able to use this to your advantage. For example, if you want to be called, it might be useful to casually move your hand to your face, just briefly, and then quickly withdraw it as if you’ve been burnt.
The reason for this is that many people have a powerful stereotype where they believe that a liar will touch their face in an unconscious attempt to stop the lies from coming out of their mouth. Use this to signal to your opponent that you are bluffing (when you really have a monster) and watch them push their chips into the middle.

In conclusion, the overall message is that the stare- down can be both a boon and a bane – so use it wisely, and not too often (Mr Bond).

Gambling is an emotive topic and one that creates conflicting views. Those who gamble rarely think there’s anything wrong with it and scoff at those who claim it’s the root of all evil, while those who don’t gamble think it’s a problem (or claim it’s a problem waiting to happen), and ultimately blame gambling for many of society’s ills. Nevertheless, people continue to gamble, and an insight into human psychology can provide several reasons for the attraction.
One of the most powerful explanations for gambling behaviour is that we’ve simply learned to do it from our role models. Children find out from an early age what constitutes good and bad behaviour and, according to ‘social learning theory’, we learn to distinguish good and bad from those we respect, like and are close to us (i.e. family and friends). If a child sees a parent playing cards for money, or betting on the horses, it’s seen as acceptable behaviour and consequently that child will be more likely to indulge in that behaviour as they grow older.
This is certainly something to consider if you have children that you don’t want to follow in your footsteps! How many poker players do you know who have learned the game from a family member at an early age? Likewise, if we see those who we admire (sportsmen, film and TV stars) indulging in gambling behaviours, then we’re more likely to want to emulate them.

The high life
Another key factor in why people gamble is because it brings escapism from the daily grind by creating highs and lows that might not otherwise come your way. The perception of gamblers – think of Sammy Farha on High Stakes Poker – is that they’re having a great time and making a lot of money.
The life that we see appears more glamorous than our own, and the larger the gap between the two types of lifestyle (i.e. ours and theirs), the more likely we are to gamble to try to be like them.
Then there are those who gamble because they enjoy the risks that are involved, and they tend to get a ‘buzz’ from such risky behaviour. This ‘buzz’ is normally associated with a change of physiology, such as an increase in pulse rate and the release of chemicals into the body, such as adrenaline and dopamine (although the link between risk-taking and chemical release is not always clear cut).
There is evidence that some of the physiological changes associated with gambling, especially in those who are classified as ‘addicted’, are very similar to the changes that are found in those who are drug addicts or alcoholics. Similarly, there’s a growing number of researchers who claim that overall there is very little difference between those who are addicted to drugs or alcohol and those who are addicted to gambling.
Fortunately, for most of us gambling is just a way to socialise, have a bit of fun and let our hair down as an antidote to work; although if we are seen to spend a bit too much time indulging in what we consider to be just a hobby, those nearest to us are prone to worry that we are becoming addicted.

Random factors
Unfortunately, no one has really discovered why some people who are involved in certain behaviours (such as gambling, drinking or drug- taking) become addicted whereas others don’t. If it was due to mere exposure to certain stimuli, then we would expect, for example, to see a higher rate of addiction to gambling in workers within the industry, such as those who work in casinos and betting shops, but this tends not to be the case.
There are certainly no hard and fast rules to tell when someone has a gambling problem, but there are some signs you can look out for. These include: gambling for higher and higher stakes in order to provide the ‘buzz’ once achieved at much lower levels; feeling restless and irritable when it’s not possible to gamble, sometimes accompanied by physical symptoms such as nausea, headaches and sweats; borrowing (or stealing) from family and friends in order to gamble or to pay off gambling debts; lying about the extent to which one gambles, especially to loved ones; putting close relationships at risk by preferring to gamble as opposed to spending quality time with people; and being preoccupied with gambling in thought and conversation.
While this list is by no means exhaustive, generally speaking, any behaviour that prevents a person from living a reasonably ‘normal’ life can be classed as a problem, and is likely to indicate some level of addiction.