Change Your Face and Change Your Game

Frank Henderson is a well-known poker player from Houston who was runner-up to Johnny Chan in the World Series of Poker main event in 1987. He is equally well known for his sense of humor and wit. But when I saw him at this year’s WSOP, he was anything but in a smiley mood. He seemed to be in some kind of acute distress and kept scratching his groin incessantly.

“Got herpes again, Frank?” I asked jokingly.

Henderson was not amused. “Don’t get smart, Max,” he replied while handing me a copy of the current issue of Reader’s Digest. “If you want to see what’s bothering me, read this story.”

A headline reading “Crazy Ants” was outlined by illustrations of ants crawling every which way across the page. “They’re coming by the millions,” the caption read. “Strange, creepy creatures that appear to be impossible to kill. They started in Texas, but they don’t intend to stay there.”

The frightening story described how infestations of these destructive, invasive, lunatic ants that zig and zag mindlessly descended on Houston and other parts of the U.S., and are continuing to spread. “They run around like they’re on crack,” someone was quoted. They don’t bite, but they terrorize people by racing up their feet and around their bodies. They also seem drawn to electronic devices such as car stereos, circuit boxes and machinery. So many will pour in that they can cause short circuits and have ruined laptops and even temporarily shut down chemical plants.

Oh, great, as if we didn’t have enough really important things to be concerned about, like higher and higher juice being taken out of tournament buy-ins and the battle to keep online poker from returning, now we have to worry about crazy ants coming in and burning out our laptops. Come to think about it, maybe these creatures were turned loose by casino owners who don’t want us playing poker on our computers.

I later read through other articles in the magazine and, as unbelievable as the “Crazy Ants” narrative was, I found something even more incredible. In a section called “That’s Outrageous,” with a subhead of “Poor Sports,” was a paragraph taken from an article in the huffingtonpost.com:

Are you the sort of cardplayer whose face gives it away when you get a royal flush? Good News! A New York plastic surgeon has introduced “Pokertox,” a program of Botox and facial fillers designed to enhance a player’s poker face.”

It didn’t sound so “outrageous” to me. Facial expressions and movements can reveal a lot about your hand. Mike Caro wrote The Book of Tells many years ago, and former FBI agent Joe Navarro has written several body language books and gives lectures and seminars on facial giveaways such as full lips denoting confidence and raised eyebrows indicating strength. Players hide behind sunglasses and hoodies, so why not an operation to freeze your facial expressions?

Some years ago I came down with a condition known as Bell’s palsy, which froze and contorted one side of my face for several months. This helped my game a lot. Players couldn’t read me because they were too horrified to even look at me.

“Look, Mommy,” I said to my sweetie, “Now they’re doing surgery on your face to hide your expressions when you play poker. Isn’t that something?”

“Yes, something that I think you should look into, Maxwell.”

“Me, why me?”

“Because you’re as easy to read as a kindergarten book,” she explained. “When you make a hand you break out into a big smile and giggle uncontrollably. When you don’t, you frown, sniffle and start muttering to yourself. You might as well hold your cards up in the air — which you do anyway.”

Checking further, I found the full HuffPost story online which it turns out was written back in 2012. It noted that Jack Berdy is a doctor of aesthetic medicine and a fan of gambling who devised “Pokertox,” a combination of Botox and facial fillers designed to enhance a player’s “poker face” and hide any sign of facial emotion tip-off. The process involves Dr. Berdy consulting with players about what they believe their “tells” or unconscious signals are. “Some people might get a card they don’t like and raise their eyebrows,” he is quoted as saying (odd — Navarro says raised eyebrows indicate strength) “or squint or curl their lips.” Botox, he said, can hide those facial giveaways or even be used to create false tells.

Wow, that’s what I need! Maybe he could even grow some hair for me. But then I discovered that a treatment would cost $800 or more, which amounts to 40 buy-ins for my usual $2-$4 limit games. What’s more, the treatments only last three or four months and would require pretty expensive repeat surgery. Also, Dr. Berdy’s claims have been met with skepticism and ridicule from players who point out that facial signs are only a part of the world of tells. Botox, they note, can’t cover up clues like throbbing in the neck, much less hide other and more reliable tips such as betting patterns.

In fact, after doing intense investigation, I discovered that the only ones to sign up for his treatment were guys from the Full Tilt scandal who want to disguise their faces so they can risk venturing out in public again.

Oh, well, so much for Pokertox. Maybe I can just find a way to contract Bell’s palsy again. ♠

Max Shapiro, a lifelong poker player and former newspaper reporter with several writing awards to his credit, has been writing a humor column for Card Player ever since it was launched more than 20 years ago. His early columns were collected in his book, Read ’em and Laugh.