Scientifically proven: Playing poker with a smile is better:)

A recent publication by Harvard University professor Erik Schlicht shows that playing poker with a smile on your face provides for better results at the poker table than a straight pokerface.

In the experiment, a group of beginners (with a basic understanding of the rules and strategy) played a simple form of Texas Hold’em. They were shown their own cards and a picture of the face of an opponent before they had to make a decision between calling and folding. With a call they could win or loose 5000 chips, with a fold a player lost 100 points.

The results showed that angry faces or poker faces without expression had no influence on the decision to call or to fold. When the same decisions had to be made when the players were shown pictures of ‘reliable’ faces with (often times) a smile it appeared that the players made significantly worse call/fold decisions and had to take more time for a decision.

From the research ‘Human wagering behavior depends on opponents’ faces‘:

“Mistakes against trustworthy opponents resulted from increased loss aversion, suggesting that participants believed trustworthy opponents were betting with hands of greater value than neutral and untrustworthy opponents.”

So lighten up at the poker table, it will only help you!