Emotion in Poker
Too many times we sit down at a online poker game and forget that it’s a social game played with real living people. With ipods blocking out the outside world, mirrored sun glasses, hats and hoodies, and all those other accessories covering their faces, it becomes easy for many players to get into a robotic state of online poker. I’ll be one of the first to say, I like a little table talk. And if you think about it, getting the people at your table talking can be advantageous. One of your main goals in poker is to elicit information from your poker opponents. The more someone talks, the more they reveal about themselves. And the more they reveal about themselves, the more information they’re giving you to use later on. It just seems wrong to me that in poker emotion is shunned. It’s like people have taken the concept of poker face to the extreme and are taking the human element out of the game. In all other sports we see cheers and jeers, booing and cursing, a little ribbing and maybe even some trash talk between players. After all, that’s all part of the competition. So why not integrate this into your game? If you’re a talker by nature, by all means talk. Because what it’s really about is comfort. If you’re feeling more comfortable, you’re more likely to make better plays. If you’re forced to sit in silence (as some would advise) and you begin to feel agitated or angry and don’t have an outlet for it, the outlet will manifest itself in the form of bad play. The main thing to take home is to not worry about showing a little emotion. It’s your personality at the table, and no strategy that strips you of your personality, of showing how you feel after a bad beat or a miracle catch, is a strategy that I would condone. So relax, kick your feet up, and get social. You are supposed to be having fun, remember?
