What is Poker Face: The Meaning Behind The Name

Are you good at managing your emotions?

In our day-to-day lives, we are driven by emotions. People who can manage to keep secrets and maintain a neutral expression on the face all the time are often referred to having a ‘Poker face”.

In simple words, a person is said to have to a poker face when he or she hides the thoughts and emotions behind the face. This is said to be one of the must-to-have qualities for everyone who needs to win in personal and professional life. There come several situations in life and profession where you have to face the situations with a neutral face even though some sort of emotions tempts or burns in your heart.

Managing emotions is an art.           You must have confidence in your abilities to prevent unwanted emotions like nervousness and fear from being triggered. Controlling expressions is necessary in most situations in our personal and professional life such as when you are in a meeting with your boss or facing a job interview. People can find out how you feel through your behavior and body language, even if you are not consciously revealing it.

This popular idiom is taken from the wonderful game – Poker.

Poker is a skill-based card game. To win, you have to create the best 5-card combination as per the hand ranking rules. In order to make the best move, you have to gather information about the strength of the opponent’s hand. In a live game, you can find out what your opponent is going to do next by observing his body language and facial expressions. These unintentional actions and tendencies can give some valuable insights about your opponent’s game. Similarly, to keep your hand a secret from watchful eyes, you have to learn how to hide your thoughts.

Negative emotions like anger and frustration can seriously harm your table image. If you allow these emotions to take control of your gameplay, you won’t be able to survive for long at the tables.

Do these emotions harm only the table image? What happens when you fail your control and manage your negative emotions? Do you have some bitter experiences? Maybe! Uncontrollable anger is more than enough to kill the happiness in the family and at home. It can even break the good relationships making you the loser in life just as across the Poker table.

Then how to make yourself unreadable at the highly competitive Poker table?

To refrain themselves from revealing valuable information about your hand, you have to learn how to regulate your emotions. It requires mental strength and lots of practice to control feelings like nervousness or excitement. Crossing your arms, tapping your feet, biting nails, avoiding eye contact are some ‘easy-to-read’ signs of uncertainty and anxiousness which can make you an easy target for the experienced players.

Saying that, it is also true that a person who never expresses his emotions is not immune to psychological attacks. The secret of success of such type of people is their ability to deal effectively with bad situations. They never suppress their emotions. They acknowledge their feelings and direct their thoughts towards the positive aspect of the situation. They know the importance of maintaining their calm whenever they feel stuck or trapped in order to find out the best solution to the problem.

Stressful situations are common in life. Poker is the game which can help you master the skills of controlling emotions under adverse circumstances and perform well under pressure. It teaches you how to make the best possible decisions as per the constantly changing situation, at the game table as well as in life. You learn how to take calculated risks by carefully analyzing every aspect of the situation. Your winning in a game of Poker depends on how effectively you can hide your emotions from your competitors and develop the best strategy as per your understanding of opponent’s game.

You are well aware of the importance of managing negative emotions. Presently, people look for different methods like meditation, yoga, therapy, etc. to control the emotions. But if you are the one to think differently and love card games, then just play poker game to shape your mind to control your emotions with a balanced mind. Now the game is available on both computer and mobile screens. Play poker game whenever you are free to practice the art of managing the emotions to hit success in both life and poker games.

If you too want to improve your mental abilities, start playing Poker. All popular variants Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Hold’em ++, Crazy Pineapple) are available online in cash games and tournament formats. You can easily install a Poker game app on your Android or iOS devices to play the amazing card game anytime, anywhere.