Poker Tell Workouts

Bluffing or Value? Assignment #01

By
Blake Eastman
INSTRUCTIONS
After dedicating 6+ years to rigorously studying the behavior of poker players, we’ve learned several very important things about behavior at the poker table.

STEP 1 WATCH THE VIDEO

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Empatica E4 was a key tool in helping us really understand the nature of physiological arousal at the poker table. The practice of concealment is embedded into the game of poker as players will often use stillness or other coping mechanisms to hide their physiological arousal during emotionally intense moments in the game.
Major insight of the Beyond Tells Study is that players often use different methods to conceal different physiological states. For example, a player may become hyper still when experiencing the physiological arousal of bluffing, but might not experience this arousal or feel the need for the same level of concealment when he has a strong hand. For another player, this pattern might be reversed. The Empatica E4 allows us to pinpoint these increases in arousal and then examine them more closely via video analysis.

STEP 2 WATCH THE BREAKDOWN

Assignment Takeaways
  1. Behavior can be used to narrow a range but you need to focused on processing what’s in front of you.
    The Empatica E4 was a key tool in helping us really understand the nature of physiological arousal at the poker table. The practice of concealment is embedded into the game of poker as players will often use stillness or other coping mechanisms to hide their physiological arousal during emotionally intense moments in the game.
    Major insight of the Beyond Tells Study is that players often use different methods to conceal different physiological states. For example, a player may become hyper still when experiencing the physiological arousal of bluffing, but might not experience this arousal or feel the need for the same level of concealment when he has a strong hand. For another player, this pattern might be reversed. The Empatica E4 allows us to pinpoint these increases in arousal and then examine them more closely via video analysis.
  2. Behavior can be used to narrow a range but you need to focused on processing what’s in front of you.
    The Empatica E4 was a key tool in helping us really understand the nature of physiological arousal at the poker table. The practice of concealment is embedded into the game of poker as players will often use stillness or other coping mechanisms to hide their physiological arousal during emotionally intense moments in the game.
    Major insight of the Beyond Tells Study is that players often use different methods to conceal different physiological states. For example, a player may become hyper still when experiencing the physiological arousal of bluffing, but might not experience this arousal or feel the need for the same level of concealment when he has a strong hand. For another player, this pattern might be reversed. The Empatica E4 allows us to pinpoint these increases in arousal and then examine them more closely via video analysis.

Me! The guy writing this and the person you see in all of the videos. My entire professional life has gravitated around three things: Poker, Psychology, and Nonverbal Behavior. Below are some of the reasons I am uniquely qualified to discuss poker and tells.

  • I am the Founder of the Behavioral Research company The Nonverbal Group

  • I am the Founder of School of Cards and have been coaching poker for close to a decade.

  • I was an Adjunct Psychology Professor at the City University of New York.

You can learn more about me here

Beyond Tells has several components but it’s essentially divided into two big pursuits, Training and Research.

  • It’s the largest ongoing behavioral study of poker players.

  • It’s the most comprehensive training on poker tells ever created.

Watch the video to learn more