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A recent WSOP Academy student asked me to comment on the verbal cues indicative of bluffing or deception. I realized that I hadn’t talked about this before at length and it is something that is pivotal to poker players. In essence the questioned boiled down to this: What can our verbal, or perhaps more accurately our vocal, cues tell us about how strong, how weak, or how marginal a player might be?
How can we define a verbal cue? In my field of nonverbal communication, the definitions are fairly straightforward when it comes to whether something is verbal or nonverbal. In layman’s terms, a word is verbal and everything else is nonverbal. Here’s where it gets a little complicated. If a person coughs, hums, stutters, drops his voice, yells, or speaks sotto voce, it is defined as nonverbal. If something comes out of his mouth that is a sound or what specialists call a speech error (e.g., hummm, errrr, ahhhh, shhhh, tsss, tututu, etc.), these also are considered nonverbals, not verbals. Got it? Good. Let’s go on.
So you’re at the table and your opponent is taking his time making a decision. He’s exhaling through puffed cheeks (a nonverbal sign of distress/ pacifying) while making sounds with his tongue such as “tutututu.” The communication coming out of his mouth is a nonverbal (not a word) indication that he is either weak — or at best marginal — on this call and he isn’t sure.
Now that we understand the difference, what you will notice at the tables is that there are a lot of vocalized nonverbals we can look for to indicate feelings, thoughts, intentions, weakness, or strength.
From the research on deception, liars tend to have more speech errors in their conversations or declarations. This is often seen in answers to questions when someone responds, “I ahhh, ahhh, am not sure I know what happened.” This speech error (the repetitive ahhh) is suspicious at the poker table in the same way that an FBI Agent would fi nd it suspicious when an interviewee repeats a question asked (a technique used to delay while a liar thinks of an answer). Thus, at a poker game, I would be very suspicious of the strength of a player who when asked if he has a strong hand responds, “I ahh, ahh, got the nuts if you want to find out.” Also, his response of “Do I have a strong hand?” after you question him about his holding, would indicate weakness. In both of these replies, one nonverbal (ahh, ahh) and one verbal (Do I have…) it is most likely that the player is weak or lacks confidence in his hand.
I suspect there are very few actual verbal cues in poker because at many tables players simply don’t talk or they are not challenged sufficiently to elicit verbal cues to deception or bluffing. In any case, whether verbal or nonverbal, the brain holds the key to our understanding of verbal and nonverbal cues.
As the frequent readers of this column know, the limbic brain controls our emotions and reacts to the world around us, including hole and community cards. This part of the brain responds genuinely to feelings, doubts, and confidence as they are experienced. When we are happy, we tend to sit up and our eyes are bright. That’s easy, but what about our words?
Words and thoughts are processed and formed in the higher areas of the brain, the prefrontal cortex and nearby zones known as the Broca / Wernicke, but these aren’t the areas that give emotion and passion to words. That comes from the limbic system. While a person can say one thing by expressing words (verbal cues), the limbic brain may either support it or reject it completely — something we see all the time at the tables in the body language of our opponents.
Confidence and delight in what we are saying comes from the more primitive emotional area of the brain. When someone comes in and says confidently, “We can do this,” we can compare to determine whether the emotion behind the words mirrors the words. The emotion behind the words, being limbic and therefore more honest, is what a coach uses to motivate a team. Otherwise coaches would just hand out a memo.
You’ve probably noticed that when we are emotionally charged or upset, our emotional brain tends to take over (that is its primary responsibility). Ever been to a surprise party? This is why when everyone comes out from hiding, the person of honor may be left speechless. How about when you’re in the heat of an argument and you can’t get the right words out? At that very moment, we lack the ability to converse in the way we desire, but later think of the right things to say after we have cooled off. It is emotional hijacking that overwhelms our capacity to say what we want to say.
In poker, a player who suddenly realizes he has the nuts may be so emotionally overwhelmed that his hands may shake during the attempt to move all his chips into the center. Or, he might say, “All in,” with such exuberance and with such a loud voice, that no one doubts that he has the nuts, as a result of the nonverbal cues. Yes, he said, “All in,” but the resonating voice and the exuberance of his face are all nonverbals that we must interpret.
Another nonverbal often perceived as a verbal cue is when a player suddenly stops talking. Say the woman to your left has been a chatterbox all day, then suddenly stops talking while mixing it up in a large pot. She is most likely trying to suppress her excitement at having a monster hand. By not talking, she is attempting to hide in the open with a typical limbic freezing response. Logic dictates that players who are strong have no need to vary their vocal behavior. It is when we are weak that we hunker down. We become overly attentive to the world around us and act in such a delicate nature that we do not falter in any way.
Look for players who, when they raise or go all in, talk in a higher pitch or their voice cracks. Changes in voice pitch, again a nonverbal, are indicative of stress, discomfort, or weakness. Chances are they’re bluffing or weak. Also note if a player’s voice tends to drop off as he is making a statement such as “I’m calling.” If he sounds like a child who has been caught red-handed and answers “nooooooo,” he is lacking in confidence and is bluffing.
Many of the pros I have watched over the last five years who banter at the table are not aware that oftentimes they give off tells while they are yapping. A sudden change in speech pattern or an inability to answer a simple question may indicate the person is marginal and is trying to decide what to do next.
One of the things that inexperienced or shy poker players fail to take advantage of is what their own words or verbal cues can gain them at the table. You see a player is holding his cards between his thumb and middle finger and is shuffling them back and forth while waiting his turn. You know based on your experience that he’s going to fold. Why not call him on it, and challenge him to stay in the pot? A quick verbal challenge may serve to elicit a response from an otherwise uncommitted player.
I also see players not taking the opportunities to evince tells by simply asking questions. Questions such as “You’re really weak right now, aren’t you?” or “Are you bluffing me?” or simply “If you were really strong, you would have raised more” may elicit a lot of information from an unwary player. You would be surprised at some of the reactions you will get.
Often poor players or players who just can’t bluff very well will buckle under the scrutiny of a verbal challenge. I have seen Mike Matusow and Daniel Negreanu use this technique repeatedly to their advantage. Although these are two of the best “talkers” in the game, neither of them measure up to Phil Hellmuth in this category. Perhaps this explains his 11th bracelet? Well, not completely, but his uncanny ability to consistently put players on tilt or get them to reveal from a verbal challenge that they’re weak is unmatched. As an observer, what always interests me is watching just how many people fall for this because, as you know, you don’t have to talk to anyone at the table. You don’t have to answer their questions. You don’t even have to look at them. Yet player after player falls for this strategy. Hellmuth uses verbal cues to elicit nonverbal tells, and it obviously works.
Hellmuth has told me at the numerous WSOP Academy seminars that we’ve co-taught, that there are any number of verbal challenges he uses and that he reserves them for specific situations and players. Obviously this is a thinking person’s sport. Greg Raymer also uses these techniques of using verbal challenges or cues to elicit nonverbals which clue him in on the strength of his opponents. For example, a player is challenged during heads-up play whether or not he has the nuts. Rather than answering forcefully with a Cheshire grin, the player retorts with a weak, “Yup, I do” (barely audible), and then gives a half (false) smile: The player is weak.
For most players, I would advise that rather than worry about the verbal cues of others, concern yourself with your own verbal and nonverbal behaviors that could be giving away your hand. For instance, you call out “Raise!” or with how much conviction you say it, will determine how others see you at that moment. Indicating “check” meekly with the middle finger palm down may suggest that you are limping along.
Be careful that in making a call, you don’t reveal that you are strong by being vocally excited. Again, any verbal statements that are accompanied by indicators of hesitation, nervousness, changes in pitch, speech errors, and so forth, are indicative of weakness.
One last comment about verbal cues at the table: Don’t spar with others verbally; eventually you will run up against someone who will outgun you with words. I know it is tempting to answer back to someone who is challenging you with questions and staring you down. But in the end, you have nothing to lose by remaining silent. The best of players (like Brunson and Ferguson) will say nothing and that, my friends, is a powerful nonverbal.
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