In my previous column, I introduced some tips for improving your observational skills. As I’ve stated in the past, it does not do you any good to know the tells if you can’t actually spot them when you play live poker. If you haven’t read that article, I suggest you take a look at it here.
Specifically, I wrote about the benefits of trying to improve your poker tells reading skills every day, even away from the table. I also gave you some television shows you could watch to get better at body language and human behavior. Finally, I suggested that you listened to your inner voice when you catch yourself displaying a gesture of stress or discomfort, so that you can validate what you’ve been learning.
In this month’s article, I’m going to conclude this two part series by giving you more ways you can use to really boost your poker tells skills.
Tip No 4 – Get Micro-Expression Training
If you’ve been reading this column for the past year, you know how much I value micro-expressions and most importantly how they can give you great insights into your opponents’ state of mind. There are a few tools out there but my favorites are the micro-expression tools from Humintell. Their software suite isn’t free, but they have a bunch of different choices you can choose from. You can start with a lite version and move onto more robust training and even get certification.
Most importantly, you can set the speed of the training, which will help you get better and better as you can start at a slower pace and try to spot the faster micro-expressions as you improve. Also, they offer different view types from frontal view to side views. Basically, just as you would try to catch them in the real world, and sitting at the table.
Tip No 5 – Follow World Experts
There are a lot of people out there that give out tips about body language, but not all of them are among the best in the field. I thought I’d give you a list of experts that know their stuff, and you can take their advice to the bank:
Paul Ekman: If you’ve even heard of the television show Lie To Me, you should know that the main character of the series, Cal Lightman, played by Tim Roth, is based on Dr. Paul Ekman. Ekman is a psychologist who has been a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He has been considered one of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century. Basically, he discovered micro-expressions and the seven basic emotions. Paul Ekman has a series of training software similar to the ones I discussed from Humintell, but as stated above, I prefer the suite from that company, although you can’t go wrong with the tools offered from Paul Ekman’s website. Also look for videos from him on YouTube.
Joe Navarro: You probably know Joe Navarro from his book on poker tells “Read’em and Reap” (which I recommend you read by the way). If you don’t know who Joe is, he’s an ex FBI agent turned author and body language speaker. Joe often posts links to articles, videos or reviews on body language on his Twitter stream (@navarrotells). The quality of the information he gives is right up there. Most importantly, Joe is very responsive if you have questions or comments on the topic.
David Matsumoto: Dr. Matsumoto is a renowned expert in the field of micro-expressions, gesture, nonverbal behavior, culture and emotion. He is the director of Humintell and is also a Professor of Psychology at San Francisco State University. Like Joe Navarro, he is very active on Facebook and Twitter (@davidmatsumoto), and you can pick his brain with questions through these mediums.
Other experts: You can also find a bunch of experts on my own body language Twitter list. If you don’t want to set it up yourself, the easiest thing you can do is to follow my list. You’ll be in good company, as Dr Matsumoto follows my list as well :-).
Tip No 6– Read Quality Body Language Blogs
The last tip I will be giving you to improve your observational skills is to read good quality blogs. I will give you three that I feel are really good and will help you a lot, and they get updated frequently.
Body Language Success: A blog maintained by Dr. G. "Jack" Brown, a physician in the Las Vegas area. This blog is about gestures and emotions, and you will really improve your skills if you go through his posts. He provides pictures and good examples to illustrate human behavior concepts and his analyses are usually right on.
Spying for Lying: Although the author of this website wishes to stay anonymous, this is another good blog. It will provide you with great analyses in body language and also other related topics such as deception detection and micro-expressions. This blog also sometimes features articles from Joe Navarro.
Eyes For Lies: The lady who runs this blog is called “Eyes for Lies” and is what we call a “natural”. A very small percentage of people (less than 1%, according to Dr. Paul Ekman) are natural lie detectors who can detect micro-expressions and lies without being trained. She is one of them (although she does have very academic training on body language as well). Her blog mostly focuses on catching liars and deception. She will often analyse current events such as a very public murder trial or an interview with someone accused of a crime. Very good stuff if you want to improve your skills, and get better at catching liars at the table.
I hope you enjoyed this two part series. I understand I kind of digressed from my usual article format but I am convinced that these tips will help you get much better much faster if you know how to access good quality information on the subject. Like I’ve discussed in part one of the series, you can train yourself every day, even away from the table. In fact, I would say that the best time to improve your observational skills is to focus on body language when you are away from the table. When we are playing, there are many things you have to track, such as betting pattern, hand ranges and other poker related factors. So if you really want to get it, I urge you to train yourself when you are not sitting in a game, as you’ll be able to focus solely on human interaction.
So follow the advice I’ve given you in this series. Get micro-expression software, watch reality television shows, read the blogs, follow the experts, and observe yourself in various situations. Reading poker tells is something you have to take seriously if you want to be really good at it, and since I’d say more than 99% of players have no clue what poker tells really are, this is a great way to stand out and give you an extra edge when you are playing your next poker session.
Nicolas Fradet is the poker tells expert at tellskitchen.com. TellsKitchen is almost sold out!
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