NO DECENT BODY LANGUAGE BOOK would be complete without a few words on poker tells, one of the most romanticized aspects of gambling and of body language. After all, learning to read other players’ signals both increases your chances of winning and reveals a secret code to tell you everything they are thinking.
Seductive though this idea is, there is the deeper reality: unless you understand the power of your own hand, winning will be sheer fluke. No comprehension of another’s mind will be more powerful than knowing the value you hold.
But other players will try to get you to question yourself. Or as they call it in poker, bluff you. They’ll want you to think you have less than they do. Or they’ll want to con you into thinking that you have more. They’ll want you to either fold or risk more than you should.
So, if you think you may have way more to learn in order to ace the game—be it in the high-stakes professional poker world, a friendly game with your crew or trying to impress the love of your life at a casino date night—then you’re right. But should this stop you from playing?
If you wait until you understand enough to do something tricky with total surety, you’ll never even get going. Or as our longtime friend the British writer Shaun Prendergast wrote to us on our wedding day: “We must kiss the dice as we begin / unless we take the risk we cannot win.”
Take what you have, and fly with it.