Reading Bodies

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, contains the following definitions:

body language n. the gestures, postures, and facial expressions by which a person manifests various physical, mental, or emotional states and communicates nonverbally with others

proxemics n. (used with a singular verb) the study of the cultural, behavioral, and sociological aspects of spatial distances between individuals; proxemic (adj.)

Have you ever noticed that when you're alone in an elevator and somebody steps on, you automatically move back against the wall, or if it's available, into a corner? Watch somebody talking on a cell phone. In the vast majority of cases, the person will smile, grimace, nod, shake his head, or make hand gestures. Why? The person on the other end of the line can't see. What's the point?

The fact is, body language is ingrained in us. Some say it's cultural, while others say it's genetic. And still others (the school of thought I subscribe to) say it's a combination of nature and nurture. Regardless, it's indubitably real. Our bodies are part of our communication apparatus.

A big part of playing poker well has always been being able to read opponents. We do this primarily through analyzing their conscious actions, seeking predictive thoughts and betting patterns that assist our hand reading. But good players also watch for body language, which will give them a clue about opponents' holdings and intentions; this is known as reading tells.

Of course, reading tells has always been a part of the game. There are conscious tells, such as the player behind you who threateningly holds chips in his hand in an effort to affect your decision. There are unconscious tells, such as a player who has looked at his hand, and is clearly disinterested and ready to throw it away. (This is why many professional players never look at their hands until it's their turn to act; they can't unconsciously give away any information, because they don't have any yet.)

But reading your opponent's physical reactions goes beyond this. Some players say they can glean information about the quality of an opponent's hand by looking for Adam's apple movement or pupil dilation. Indeed, the pupil dilation thing is why some players wear sunglasses when they play. (I sometimes wear sunglasses, not for this reason, but so that I can control whether or not my opponents can see what I'm looking at; if I want them to register where my attention is focused, I take the sunglasses off.) Personally, I have never had the ability to read behavior by such small unconscious physical responses, but I have been told by some very able players that they can do it.

I do, however, always note how people manage their body space. You can always deduce something from observing the distances between people when they interact. Back in the '50s, an anthropologist by the name of Edward Hall developed the concept of proxemics – the study of how people perceive and use the space around them. The core of his work, which resulted in two books, was the observation that the distances humans maintain from each other vary according to social interactions. How one moves within his or her assigned space can also provide useful information to the observant poker player.

Most Americans conduct business at a distance of four to six feet. Germans and Asians, on the other hand, tend to conduct business farther apart, which is why Americans often think they are standoffish. Hispanics and Arabs conduct business closer, at two or three feet, making Americans uncomfortable, and giving us the impression that these people are pushy based on our cultural parameters. Regional and tribal differences in nonverbal communication go back to the beginnings of human discourse. Being aware of cultural differences in our opponents is important to analyzing how their bodies react to their current situation.

Humans are inherently territorial. Whether it's a Marine sergeant in the face of a recruit or an executive holding out for a bigger office, space is often about dominance and submission. And part of the psychology of poker is establishing dominance over your opponents. Not only can you use proxemics to read your opponents, but you can manage your own proxemics in a way that aids in making your opponents uncomfortable, affecting how they view you even though they may not know why.

Anthropologists have deduced that, depending upon the culture, somewhere between 66 percent and 99 percent of all communication is nonverbal. This includes not only proxemics, but tactilics (the language of touch) and oculesics (the language of glances and stares). One application of tactilics in poker is watching how some female players use gender to affect the behavior of their male opponents, a subject worthy of a column of its own. Oculesics is a significant part of poker strategy, psychology, and analysis.

We are approaching a time when the majority of human communication will not occur face-to-face. Mass media, e-mail, telephones, and other electronic communications have begun to affect the cultural paradigm of communication in a completely new way. We all communicate daily with people who have no chance to read our body language, and we have no chance to read theirs. This to some extent atrophies our habit of consciously and subconsciously analyzing and responding to each other's gestures, glances, and spatial characteristics.

Of course, this is evident in poker by the growth of the Internet game, where highly experienced Internet players enter the arena of live competition, whether ring games or tournaments, and give away a lot of edge in both reading others and being easy to read.

The roots of body language very likely go back more than a million years to the roots of human consciousness and communication. Verbal language is only about 100,000 years old. Eons of evolution and conditioning are ingrained into each of us, and our unconscious nonverbal behaviors and our instinctive responses to the nonverbal behaviors of others are an intrinsic element of our humanity. And if you're making the most of it with what you have, you should make it an intrinsic part of your poker game, as well.

Roy Cooke played winning professional poker for more than 16 years. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas. If you would like to ask Roy poker-related questions, you may do so online at www.UnitedPokerForum.com. His longtime collaborator, John Bond, is a free-lance writer in South Florida.