Originally posted by roopopper
enjoying this thread , more of the this type of article would be great!! please
Roo
Thank you for being all so responsive. Don't worry, there's few more material yet to read
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Hi everyone!
Here's some more by Dr Griffiths, LMK!
Tell-y vision poker: Non-verbal communication in poker playing
Professor Mark Griffiths,
Professor of Gambling Studies
Psychology Division, Nottingham Trent University
(Please note, material contained in this article originally appeared in one of Professor Griffiths’ regular columns for the magazine ‘Inside Edge’)
I have to admit that I am not the best poker player. However, if I was, I would certainly try to use the psychology of non-verbal communication to my advantage. Back in 2004, Oxford University psychologist, Peter Collett, published a book on the psychology of ‘tells’. Collett deliberately lifted the core topic of his book from the non-verbal world of poker players.
A ‘tell’ (as you will be aware) is basically an action that reveals what a person is thinking and are often so tiny that they may not even be noticed. In poker, many players try to infer what kind of hand a person has by looking at the way the card player holds their cards, gazes at the chips or scratches their face. Tells can be both conscious and unconscious. Collett spent time studying politicians and has highlighted the ‘tells of power’ such as the way George W. Bush bit the inside of his cheek when he is highly nervous or anxious, and Bill Clinton’s tendency to bite his lower lip as a way of demonstrating his sincerity.
Most of these behaviours are intended to be hidden, but are what we psychologists call ‘emotional leakage’. Many psychologists have carried out research into non-verbal communication. However, as soon as a non-verbal ‘rule of thumb’ is well known by the general public, the knowledge can be used to their advantage. For instance, if police are told that criminals scratch their nose or look to the left when they are lying, they will obviously avoid such actions when being questioned.
When it comes to playing poker (or any card game of skill for that matter), an already skilful player will have the upper hand if they can learn to read the non-verbal cues of the other players. One of the problems is that most ‘tells’ differ from person to person. The trick is to try and memorise what the person did at a particular point such as the way they act when they raise the amount of money being staked, or the behaviour they display just before they are about to fold.
Unconscious tells are linked to negative emotions such as anxiety. If a player has been dealt a bad hand, naïve players are likely to show their psychological discomfort through nervous reactions such as unconscious leg or finger tapping. Serious poker players will already know all about tells and will usually have learned to develop their own type of ‘poker face’ to bluff opponents. This is all part of the psychological battle in playing most card games of skill. There are also what have been described as ‘transition tells’ where people display common but repetitive behavioural patterns in times of uncertainty and/or where people cross psychological boundaries.
Peter Collett provides the examples of politicians such as Gordon Brown who plays with his shirt cuffs and strokes his hair. Obviously, with so much television footage, psychologists have a much easier time in trying to analyse the unconscious everyday tells of those in the public eye. Playing cards with someone you’ve only met a few times where there is no opportunity to replay the event over and over is clearly much harder! But some good poker players do appear to have the ability to read other players and it is this ability that can separate the very good poker player from the great.
Players can also learn to use false tells as a way of bluffing their opponent. The most common that Peter Collett has described is the ‘power tell’ which is often used by political leaders in some of their actions (such as the way they walk). Just look at the way George W. Bush walks next time you see old clips of him on television. His arm swing and swagger. His shoulders are very exaggerated. He is trying to show the public that he is the leader of the Western world and what a powerful position he is in.
In a game of cards, poker players will also try to assert their dominance by using more subtle ‘power tells’ by smoking a cigar in a particular way or showing off when shuffling the cards before dealing. The whole point of power tells is to look sincere and dominant and they can be used in a wide variety of contexts including poker. In essence, power tells are about ‘one-upmanship’ and this is the bedrock of most skill-based card games.
Even the language of power tells is lifted from the gambling world. In everyday human behaviour, Collett describes power tells as behavioural actions which “raise the stakes” and allow people to metaphorically or symbolically “put their cards on the table”. While power tells are usually conscious and deliberate, most non-verbal human behaviour is totally unconscious and the vast majority of people can’t help but show their inner thinking through actions such as folding their arms.
The whole area of non-verbal communication is a fascinating area of psychological study. Human behaviour is complex and there are too many individual differences to predict what any given person will do in a given situation (such as playing poker). However, by learning to understand what all these unconscious movements mean, we can start to gain access to the window of the gambler’s mind.
Good monday to everyone,
here we go with one more article:
To err is to be human: The psychology of making mistakes in poker play
Professor Mark Griffiths
International Gaming Research Unit,
Nottingham Trent University
With thanks to Alan Schoonmaker. Please note, material contained in this article originally appeared in one of Professor Griffiths’ regular columns for the magazine ‘Inside Edge’
One of the most psychologically interesting questions concerning poker is ‘Why do so many people play so badly?’ It’s clear that most players know better, but they appear to make the same mistakes repeatedly. Given the hundreds of thousands of poker strategy books that are sold every year, we can only reach the conclusion that just a small percentage of poker players apply the skills they have read about.
My hunch is that most people understand what they have read but when it comes to playing a competitive hand it’s simply more “fun” to play badly than to play well. I’m not saying losing is more fun than winning (because quite clearly it isn’t), but the pursuit of profit maximization forces players to do things they don’t like doing. On a psychological level, maximizing profit makes extreme demands. Therefore, only a few, extraordinarily disciplined people play their best game most of the time – and nobody always plays it.
Most economists claim that gamblers are primarily driven by the profit motive. However, the psychological evidence is overwhelming that other desires affect gambling actions. Put simply, for most gamblers, our actions contradict the desire to maximize profits. Whilst I am no Freudian, there appear to be a whole range of unconscious factors at play in gambling situations.
One of the basic mistakes is playing too many hands. All the self-help books warn players against it but it is a common behaviour. In general, poker players find it boring to fold hand after hand. Players become more reckless and instead of folding, risk all in an attempt to get themselves out of a boredom rut. Even after losing, the poker player may “congratulate” their play by defining it as ‘courageous’ when in the cold light of day it was stupid. This type of adaptive thinking is common amongst gamblers who lose and should be avoided.
Poker players often chase with weak hands for the same reason. Players will throw good money after bad in an effort to get even. Occasionally the strategy will pay off, but most of the time it won’t. In these situations, gamblers will invariably focus on the few times that chasing has got them out of a hole but conveniently forget the many times that it didn’t.
Another common mistake is to playing too aggressively. Not only is this a male characteristic but is often the strategy of the game’s very top players. Again, such tactics occasionally pay off for the player in very tight games. However, in most gambling situations, playing aggressively is simply not called for yet players continue to do it. On the other hand, gamblers can sometimes play too passively. Gamblers constantly find good excuses to justify their playing styles. In these situations, gamblers simply remember the times they saved money by not betting or raising, ignoring the pots they lost by giving away free or cheap cards.
It’s also tempting to show your cards and most players will do it occasionally. If players make a successful bluff, it’s human nature to want to let people to know how smart they are. The golden rule in poker is never to give anything away but the human psyche works in such a way that we usually want to show off once in a while.
Our psychological make-up also means that we let pride get in the way of minimizing losses. There are always games that should have been avoided but players end up staying in them long after they knew it was a mistake. None of us like to lose to who we think are weaker players, or admit that the game was too hard. How many times does a player continue playing because they want to try and get the better of a great player or show off because there is someone they are trying to impress?
Although it’s a cliché, pride before a fall is commonplace. These short-term psychological satisfactions will almost always have a negative impact on long-term profits.
Because there are many non-financial types of rewards from many different sources while playing poker, some people view losses as the price of entry. To these players, winning may be a bonus. However, most of us don’t like losing – and we especially don’t like persistent losing, regardless of whether there are other types of reinforcement. In the cold light of day, we are all rational human beings. In the height of action, rationality often goes out the window. I’ve done it myself at the roulette table and standing in front of a slot machine. While gambling I have felt omnipotent. It is only after I walk away penniless that the non-financial rewards are short-term and not worth it.
Understanding our own psychological motives is clearly important while gambling. Most players know the strategies they should be adopting but fail to apply them in real gambling situations. Players do not lack the information. It is far more profitable to learn why we don’t apply the lessons we have already learned, then ensure that we apply them. Until we understand and control our own motives — including the unconscious ones — we cannot possibly play to our best ability.
These is the last article kindly shared with us by M. Griffith. I hope to have more contents for you soon.
If you can help me by suggesting researchers or give me further hints I will be grateful.
See you soon!