How We Should Look at a Poker Face
What's the value of a poker face? Is it really a must to feign facial expressions just to win at poker? And how does one have a poker face?
Emotions give away one's real situation in poker. Poker is a very secretive card game and it's best to keep a lot of things to oneself---poker hand, strategy, and the emotions. A poker face is not really so much as fooling opponents as it is delaying one's emotions to also delay the revealing of one's intentions. Primarily, this is because of the important bluffing principle: an emotion revealed is a situation or intention exposed. And in poker, we should know better than give hints of what we have.
Competition is stressful as well as exhaustive. Emotions often catapult when the going gets rough. A good or bad poker hand can trigger certain emotional reactions in us, and this may mean a lot to opponents. Thus, it is in our best interest to learn how to feign reactions to hide what we really have in hand. Even if we have a poker good hand. Being too obvious with a winning hand may spoil the prospect of raking in a hefty pot. Thus, no matter what poker hand is emerging, the thing is to keep cool and act a little.
A good poker face is really to be unmoved by circumstances, good or bad. It's not really restricting the emotions or depriving oneself of expressing emotions, but controlling them to a certain extent. It's bad for the health to restrain emotions. Medical Science have been cautioning us on suppressed feelings that lethally harm the heart---and we wouldn't want to risk that just to take home some pot. After the game is won or lost, then express the emotion.
But while in the game, it pays to be as less obvious to opponents as possible. This keeps them guessing about what we have and what our intentions are. At the same time, a poker face helps us keep focus of what really needs to be done. Being calm about everything aids us to watch the opponents' moves and reactions as we position for the final kill. Acting (not reacting) up a little to pretend helps a lot to puzzle others and have everything all mixed up for them.
Poker face is an essential weapon in one's poker arsenal to give opponents nothing but a blank sheet about one's situation. Remember that controlling emotions is an essential here.