Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe and I'm Tracy Halloway. Tracy. Today we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about a subject that we've talked about a
Speaker 1: lot on Odd Lots over the years, but I don't
Speaker 1: think we've done an episode on it recently. Do you
Speaker 1: know what it is? I mean, it could be anything,
Speaker 1: but go on, what is it? Okay, So I'll give
Speaker 1: you another hint. It's a subject that I really like
Speaker 1: and I'm interested in, and you always sort of claim
Speaker 1: that you know nothing about it and are not interested
Speaker 1: in it. Uh, it's totally not a claim, Joe, and
Speaker 1: I think I know where you're heading with this. It's
Speaker 1: the objective truth. I know nothing about the subject, and
Speaker 1: if we were to engage in this particular subject together,
Speaker 1: that would become rapidly apparent. Okay, Well, we're going to
Speaker 1: do another episode about the game of poker, which I
Speaker 1: really like, which a lot of people in markets and
Speaker 1: finance like to do in their spare time. And the
Speaker 1: reason is obviously because a lot of the things that
Speaker 1: go on in trading and a lot of the decisions
Speaker 1: that people have to make are similar to decisions that
Speaker 1: people have to make in poker because there is the
Speaker 1: sort of calculable aspect to it. There is math involved,
Speaker 1: but there's also a lot of psychology involved and things
Speaker 1: that you just cannot brute force compute, and that's of
Speaker 1: course what makes markets so interesting. We've obviously hit this
Speaker 1: subject from many ways in the past. One thing that
Speaker 1: we haven't really talked about is something that a lot
Speaker 1: of people think is a very important aspect of poker,
Speaker 1: which is tells. And that is your city across from
Speaker 1: someone at the other side of the table and they
Speaker 1: do something weird like maybe they run their hand through
Speaker 1: their hair, or they pick their nose or just whatever
Speaker 1: it is weird, or they put on their sunglasses and
Speaker 1: a big hand. You know, I'm just saying like different,
Speaker 1: different sort of impulses that people have. The people at
Speaker 1: the table try to read, right, Uh so this is
Speaker 1: something I mean, you have to be living under a
Speaker 1: rock not to know about this one. But yeah, there
Speaker 1: are tells and you're supposed to be able to read them,
Speaker 1: and that's going to help you in figuring out what
Speaker 1: the other person's hand is and then maybe even if
Speaker 1: you have a terrible hand, you can still beat them
Speaker 1: using human psychology. I know this, yes, and I think
Speaker 1: there's like I think in the movie Rounders, which is
Speaker 1: about poker, there's some major stuff tells. Anyway, So today
Speaker 1: we are going to be talking with a guest whose
Speaker 1: specialty is exactly this reading poker tells and how you
Speaker 1: can sort of watch someone and look at someone and
Speaker 1: learn something about maybe what they're holding or their psychology
Speaker 1: from their physical actions, and much in the same way
Speaker 1: that other aspects of poker may have applications to other
Speaker 1: things in the world, like investing and other sorts of
Speaker 1: making decisions that involve risk. So too to poker tells. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado on a brigand Zachary Ellwood. He is
Speaker 1: the author of multiple books on the subject of poker tells. Zach,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us. Hey, thank you, guys,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Zach. What is your background and what
Speaker 1: is a tell? How would you define a tell? Well,
Speaker 1: I would say I have a more formal definition my book,
Speaker 1: but off the cuff, I would say it's a behavior
Speaker 1: that gives information about something someone's hand in poker, obviously,
Speaker 1: but outside of poker, you could, you know, just get
Speaker 1: his information about anything that they're concealing. Why are you
Speaker 1: qualified to tell us about poker tells. Sure, that's a
Speaker 1: good question. Yeah. So basically, I played for a living
Speaker 1: full time for about three and a half years. This was,
Speaker 1: you know, two thousand, forty two dozen seven time period,
Speaker 1: and since then i've played, you know, on the side supplementally. Uh.
Speaker 1: And before that, I grew up playing poker, and I've
Speaker 1: always had an interest in it. During the poker boom,
Speaker 1: you know years which were when everyone was playing poker,
Speaker 1: which was about two thousand three two thousand eight or so,
Speaker 1: somewhere in there, I was playing a lot of poker, playing,
Speaker 1: playing for a living and and supplementally, and I was
Speaker 1: always wondering why there wasn't a better poker book, poker
Speaker 1: tells book, And there were some books out there, but
Speaker 1: I didn't think they were that good. So that's what
Speaker 1: led me to, you know, being inspired to it. Wasn't
Speaker 1: that I thought I was some super genius at the subject.
Speaker 1: It was more more like I thought I could do
Speaker 1: a better job than what was out there currently. Well,
Speaker 1: so I know you say that you don't consider yourself
Speaker 1: a super genius by any means, but when it comes
Speaker 1: to telling tells As a poker player, how how can
Speaker 1: you tell that you're good at recognizing tells versus just
Speaker 1: good at playing poker, Like, what are the two different skills? There?
Speaker 1: One thing I tell people I always try to communicate
Speaker 1: up front is that tells are a small part of
Speaker 1: winning live poker. You know, because you can be a
Speaker 1: very good player and never think about tells. You can
Speaker 1: be a very you know, highly winning player and never
Speaker 1: think about tells. So there's kind of a romantic idea
Speaker 1: that tells are super important in the game of poker.
Speaker 1: And I always like to make it clear to people that,
Speaker 1: you know, because experienced players know that, you know, strategy
Speaker 1: is is the biggest part of the game. Uh. Tells
Speaker 1: are sort of like the icing on the cake, something
Speaker 1: you do to get get a little bit more edge
Speaker 1: on people, and they can be really important, you know,
Speaker 1: some people, I'd estimated after talking to a lot of
Speaker 1: experienced players too over the years. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: being good at reading tells can add you know, anywhere
Speaker 1: from one to to your win rate, just depending on
Speaker 1: how good you are strategically. They begin with and just
Speaker 1: how good you are at reading tells, So there's a
Speaker 1: wide range but most experienced players would say the range
Speaker 1: is somewhere in that area of boosting your edge, right,
Speaker 1: like in movies about poker, which is probably where people
Speaker 1: got this romantic notion about tells. There's obviously an over
Speaker 1: emphasis on their importance because I don't know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem very cinematic to depict someone who's genuinely good at
Speaker 1: poker and folds forty hands in a row and sort
Speaker 1: of waits until the implied pod odds are making so
Speaker 1: they should bet, which is not as fun, not as fun,
Speaker 1: but it's much sexier to say that someone always does
Speaker 1: the same shifted their seats when they have a big
Speaker 1: hand or what they're bluffing. Yeah, the requirements of cinema
Speaker 1: kind of it's it's interesting that how the requirements of
Speaker 1: cinematic drama, you know, affect society and people's expectations, you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's uh, it's definitely much sexier side, which
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons I think, you know, writing
Speaker 1: about this stuff. There's a lot of people that have
Speaker 1: written about poker strategy, you know, very good players, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard for them to get much attention
Speaker 1: for their books. But writing about poker tells, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: makes people listen a lot more like it's more mainstream.
Speaker 1: In other words, So since you're talking about movies, I'm curious,
Speaker 1: Like in the movies, there's always you know, it's like
Speaker 1: a really important hand and then the opponent does something
Speaker 1: and the player is like a ha, I know that
Speaker 1: he's lying or bluffing or whatever, and it's really dramatic.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to tells, is there a hierarchy
Speaker 1: of tells? Is like a verbal tell more important or
Speaker 1: more informative than a physical tell. There's definitely a range
Speaker 1: of reliability just in general, depending on certain behaviors. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's some behaviors that I would rank is highly reliable.
Speaker 1: I would that I would rely on in a vacuum
Speaker 1: without knowing anything about a player, just because they are
Speaker 1: so generally reliable. And then there's other tells that you
Speaker 1: want to be you would want to observe a player
Speaker 1: more and see what category of behavior they're falling into
Speaker 1: you generally, and then you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: tells that are just you know, obviously not all tells,
Speaker 1: or there's lots of tells that might make you like, sure,
Speaker 1: it's one way or another. But that can be very
Speaker 1: important if you're in a big you know, a big
Speaker 1: like on the fence scenario where you could go either
Speaker 1: way between calling or folding. You know, So even a
Speaker 1: little bit of information if you think, oh, this makes
Speaker 1: it slightly more likely this guy is doing this, that
Speaker 1: can be valuable too. But and also verbal. When you
Speaker 1: mentioned verbal, I wrote a whole book on verbal poker
Speaker 1: tails called verbal Poker Hotels, and spent eight months full
Speaker 1: time working on that and actually learned a lot doing
Speaker 1: it too. Because I initially thought, oh, I won't have
Speaker 1: much to learn here. I kind of know what I
Speaker 1: want to write. But the more I spent researching and
Speaker 1: watching videos and taking notes when I played, I had
Speaker 1: a lot more to say than I thought, and I
Speaker 1: ended up concluding my My final takeaway was that verbal
Speaker 1: poke tails when they're when they're present, when there's something
Speaker 1: interesting there. When someone speaks during a hand, it's it's
Speaker 1: much more reliable than physical poke taels. Just because they're
Speaker 1: people are less. They don't know the patterns as much. Basically,
Speaker 1: they're not as well known when it comes to verbal patterns,
Speaker 1: so people are are looser when it comes to their
Speaker 1: talk So the first time I ever played poker actually
Speaker 1: in a casino, I didn't know how I was going
Speaker 1: to act, and I caught myself when I was bluffing.
Speaker 1: I had no problems, sort of like keeping my composure
Speaker 1: and just acting very relaxed. But when I had like
Speaker 1: a winning hand or a big hand, I noticed looking
Speaker 1: at my hands that I would shake more. And I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. I didn't expect that would happen, but
Speaker 1: it was something about myself that I noticed. So talk
Speaker 1: to us about the sort of general framework. How do
Speaker 1: you how do you start Let's say you sit down
Speaker 1: at a table in a tournament or a cash game
Speaker 1: in a casino. You've never seen any of the players before,
Speaker 1: so you don't have any sort of preconceived reads on them.
Speaker 1: How do you start to collect in your mind a
Speaker 1: database of tells and uh put that to your advantage quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's a pretty big that's a pretty big question
Speaker 1: started from scratch. But I'll give a few things that
Speaker 1: I like to tell people as far as like the
Speaker 1: most important things to look for. I'd say I contact
Speaker 1: an eye movement in general when people are making large
Speaker 1: beat is one of the most important behaviors to watch for. Basically,
Speaker 1: when somebody makes a big bet, where where are they looking?
Speaker 1: How loose are their eye movements when they look you know,
Speaker 1: say they look from their opponent back, you know, a
Speaker 1: few times or something. In general, like the more restrained
Speaker 1: his stoic behavior will be tied to um, you know,
Speaker 1: weak hands bluffs, whereas like the more relaxed behavior will
Speaker 1: show itself as loose movements, loose eye movements basically like
Speaker 1: more more dynamic, and that is restrained. So that's one
Speaker 1: aspect of eye movement. And then the other one is
Speaker 1: whether someone's looking at you or not looking at their
Speaker 1: opponent or not after you know, when they're making a
Speaker 1: big bet, and that can go either way, but in
Speaker 1: general it's something you want to watch and see how
Speaker 1: it's showed up before, and if you do get a
Speaker 1: pattern of someone how they're acting over time, that can
Speaker 1: be super valuable. And in general, looking at an opponent
Speaker 1: after betting is going to be slightly more tied to
Speaker 1: strength than weakness, just because most people are more comfortable
Speaker 1: when they're betting a big hand, so they're more likely
Speaker 1: to engage interact with an opponent, you know, with with
Speaker 1: their eyes, including and most people, you know, when they're bluffing,
Speaker 1: want to avoid that they're uncomfortable. They just want to
Speaker 1: sit there and not interact with anyone, right, So those
Speaker 1: kind of things come out, and yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of variety there and a lot of that you want
Speaker 1: to keep. You know, some people will be very stoic
Speaker 1: and consistent, so it's it's more like you want to
Speaker 1: see when people's One of the one of the magive
Speaker 1: things to watch for in general, just in general foretells
Speaker 1: is where where people are behavior varying their behavior, because
Speaker 1: if someone's not varying their behavior in different spots, you know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty unlikely you're going to find a find to read.
Speaker 1: But the first thing to look for is when people
Speaker 1: act differently in different spots. So seeing someone behave you know,
Speaker 1: just seeing them alter their behavior a good amount in
Speaker 1: different spots, you know, in the same situations over time,
Speaker 1: will give you an idea that you should be looking
Speaker 1: at that person. So that's why in general, yeah, you'll
Speaker 1: you'll be wanting to first study the people that seem
Speaker 1: to have more varie d and less consistency in their behavior.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a that's just a general clue. So
Speaker 1: on that note, Zach, is the best way to obscure
Speaker 1: your own tells to basically try to be as consistent
Speaker 1: as possible in in your behavior and just make sure
Speaker 1: that you're sort of reacting the same way every time.
Speaker 1: Or or is it could you be super eccentric and
Speaker 1: try to obscure it that way? Like which way should
Speaker 1: you go? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean you
Speaker 1: can go either way. Really, you can be stoic to
Speaker 1: be consistent, or you can be highly variant and and
Speaker 1: you know, eccentric as you say, and as long as
Speaker 1: there's no correlations, no one's going to give anything from you. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the safer route is, you know, being stoic,
Speaker 1: and that's what more people would you know, most most
Speaker 1: people are going to have a hard time pulling off
Speaker 1: the highly variant behavior. It's definitely possible, and I have
Speaker 1: you know, there's plenty of examples of people who are
Speaker 1: good at talking and moving around and being loose, you know,
Speaker 1: without giving any in a way. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: one of the big things that just is just knowing
Speaker 1: the common ways that information can leak, you know, with
Speaker 1: your physical or oral behavior. So if you're aware of
Speaker 1: those ways, you can definitely, you know, play with the
Speaker 1: rules a little bit and and move around and talk
Speaker 1: and not give anything away because you know the common
Speaker 1: ways that you know, information might leak. And I think
Speaker 1: what people get into trouble with is when they they
Speaker 1: try to be fancy with their behavior or super loose
Speaker 1: and they think that they're not giving any way, but
Speaker 1: they're just not aware of some of the more common
Speaker 1: ways that that can can happen, you know. So I think,
Speaker 1: you know, for example, some people try to do fancy
Speaker 1: reverse psychology and trick trick and opponent, but those kind
Speaker 1: of things can actually become that person's tells because they're
Speaker 1: just not aware of how common that kind of reverse
Speaker 1: psychology attempt is, you know. So they're they they're thinking
Speaker 1: they're doing a reverse tell, but they're actually just having
Speaker 1: to tell you know that that can happen a lot
Speaker 1: for you know, the more inexperienced players. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: gonna ask exactly about that, like this idea of reverse tells,
Speaker 1: because I have to imagine that as awareness of tells
Speaker 1: grows and people learn things like okay, if this guy
Speaker 1: puts on his sunglasses and shoves a bunch of chips
Speaker 1: into the middle of the table. It folds his arm
Speaker 1: and looks down. This is like sort of like maybe
Speaker 1: a classic bluff because he's trying to look super stoic
Speaker 1: and badass. But then over time, if everybody sort of
Speaker 1: believes that that's what a bluff looks like, then theoretically
Speaker 1: people would change their behavior. So is there sort of
Speaker 1: like a there's your mental catalog of what sort of
Speaker 1: classes of tells look like, have to be sort of
Speaker 1: constantly updated, have to sort of anticipate how people might change.
Speaker 1: Now that's that's kind of interesting thing about it. You
Speaker 1: would think that that might happen with experienced players who are,
Speaker 1: you know, operating on these multiple levels and trying to
Speaker 1: full people, But really, when it comes down to it,
Speaker 1: you don't see that much. And the the reason is
Speaker 1: because if you're trying to fool someone, say you have
Speaker 1: two good a good players playing each other, it's just
Speaker 1: really hard to predict how an opponent will interpret your behavior.
Speaker 1: And so it helps to explain a lot of things
Speaker 1: I think outside of poker too, because theoretically there's all
Speaker 1: these levels of deception, but when you get down to it,
Speaker 1: it's it's just super hard to know how someone will
Speaker 1: interpret your behavior. And that means, you know, you would
Speaker 1: have to be very sure that they would interpret it
Speaker 1: in the way you want to interpret it. And and
Speaker 1: that's hard to know because they might see you do
Speaker 1: something and just pull the opposite conclusion. They might you
Speaker 1: might be doing something on a second level of meaning,
Speaker 1: but they're taking the first level of meaning, you know,
Speaker 1: or you know, some an extra an extra level of meaning.
Speaker 1: So there's for that reason you just won't see many
Speaker 1: complex reverse towels. I see it very very infrequently, much
Speaker 1: less frequently than I would have thought, you know, a
Speaker 1: few years ago. And I think it's just because you know,
Speaker 1: it's just for that reason that the main strategy is
Speaker 1: just to be stoic and then occasionally made you do
Speaker 1: some fairly simple reverse psychology. For example, one common one
Speaker 1: that I've seen strong players do, but you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's kind of died down a bit. As like that,
Speaker 1: it was well known that when someone someone bets and
Speaker 1: they call it the clock on their opponent, you know,
Speaker 1: basically forcing their opponent to act in a certain time.
Speaker 1: When when the person whose bed has done that, typically
Speaker 1: it shows that they're relaxed, right, because normally someone who's
Speaker 1: bluffing wouldn't want to potentially anger their opponent by calling
Speaker 1: the clock on it. So then but then you had
Speaker 1: good players, you know, who recognize that, and they would
Speaker 1: sometimes call the clock on other good players because they
Speaker 1: knew that this other good player might would likely interpret
Speaker 1: it as this guy being relaxed, you know. And good
Speaker 1: players also try to take make use of the more
Speaker 1: of the lesser known tells because they would be less
Speaker 1: likely to rely on super well known tell just because
Speaker 1: then it makes the other guy, I think, oh, that's
Speaker 1: a super well known one. He wouldn't be likely to
Speaker 1: do this because he's pretty decent, you know. So there's
Speaker 1: these levels of you know, basically, the good players are
Speaker 1: going to try to rely more on the on reversing
Speaker 1: the lesser known tells that most people don't know because
Speaker 1: they think that will that's more likely to be interpreted
Speaker 1: in the way they want by another good player. So
Speaker 1: there's just all that you always have to take into
Speaker 1: account the skill level of your of your opponent, and
Speaker 1: that's why it's so complicated because you just don't know
Speaker 1: how it's going to be interpreted. So is anyone capable
Speaker 1: of fully plugging all their leaks so they don't give
Speaker 1: out any tells, or do the really experienced good players
Speaker 1: do their tells just become more subtle. And I guess
Speaker 1: that's sort of also speaks to the sort of broader
Speaker 1: question of why do humans have tells? Why is it
Speaker 1: so that, even against our best efforts, typically something in
Speaker 1: our body or our speech betrays the truth that we're
Speaker 1: trying to or the lie that we're trying to present.
Speaker 1: I think, in general, if you are experienced, if you've
Speaker 1: played a lot, I mean, if you know the common
Speaker 1: ways that information can leak, then I think you're gonna
Speaker 1: be pretty good at being unreadable, you know, and except
Speaker 1: in rare cases and unusual cases. But I think it's
Speaker 1: it's easier than most people think. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: it just basically takes making a concerted effort at understanding
Speaker 1: what is possible and then focusing on those spots. I mean,
Speaker 1: I do think there are you know, let's say, a
Speaker 1: very experienced live player who is you know, near unreadable.
Speaker 1: They still can have small tells. You know. For example,
Speaker 1: a lot of high stakes players like to wear scarfs
Speaker 1: or high collars. You know, to cover up their neck
Speaker 1: because the neck pulse can be even for experienced players
Speaker 1: making a big bluff typically in a tournament. A tournament
Speaker 1: is usually where it's it's going to bring it out
Speaker 1: of people because those are much more higher stakes and
Speaker 1: a lot more on the line than a cash game,
Speaker 1: for example. So they'll where, you know, they'll where things
Speaker 1: that cover their neck pulse because uh, you know, you're
Speaker 1: more likely experienced players anywhere are more likely to have
Speaker 1: a fast heartbeat when they're bluffing. Them when they're value betting,
Speaker 1: they're kind of you know, value betting in a in
Speaker 1: when they have a strong hand, it's kind of old
Speaker 1: hat to them. But even an experienced player can get
Speaker 1: their blood pumping in a in a big tournament spot
Speaker 1: where there's you know, theoretically a million million dollars on
Speaker 1: the line or something. So I have two questions off
Speaker 1: the back of that. One is if you can wear
Speaker 1: a scarf and sunglasses while playing poker, could you come
Speaker 1: in and just wear like a ski mask and completely
Speaker 1: obscure your face? And then the other question is everything
Speaker 1: we're talking about is you know physical or verbal tells
Speaker 1: that you see when you're playing directly across from a person.
Speaker 1: How much of this is applicable if you're playing poker online?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So the first question about the ski mask,
Speaker 1: that's definitely a you know, a poker tournament or a
Speaker 1: poker room specific question. I mean, I've seen videos of
Speaker 1: people covering up their faces, but I think most a
Speaker 1: lot of places wouldn't allow that. So yeah, it's definitely. Uh.
Speaker 1: I mean, when people do it, obviously it's it's mostly
Speaker 1: been a joke, but I'm sure there will come a
Speaker 1: day when somebody you know, wants to do that in
Speaker 1: a real situation for a lot of money, and then
Speaker 1: they have to. Yeah, I think I think the I
Speaker 1: think the more popular places don't really allow that, the
Speaker 1: popular card rooms because you know, yeah, but it's a
Speaker 1: good question how much how much can you cover up
Speaker 1: if you can cover up part of your face, you know?
Speaker 1: M hmm. What about the applicability online? Right? Yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: say the only behaviors that are meaningful online that they
Speaker 1: give information or the immediate immediate actions basically fast bets,
Speaker 1: fast calls. Those are the bet timing or action timing
Speaker 1: behaviors that I think contain the most meaning. I'm trying
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything else I can think of
Speaker 1: a top of my head, unless it's like somebody chatting
Speaker 1: in the in the chat, I think so basically, And
Speaker 1: the most meaningful of that is the fast call. Basically,
Speaker 1: say you've got the flop, which is for non poker players,
Speaker 1: when the first three cards come out and you bet,
Speaker 1: you bet that flop and then somebody calls you really quick.
Speaker 1: In general, quick calls early in the hand, they're gonna
Speaker 1: indicate medium strength to weak hands, basically because somebody with
Speaker 1: a strong hand is generally gonna at least consider raising
Speaker 1: you in that spot because they want to maximize value.
Speaker 1: So they're gonna even if they decide to call you,
Speaker 1: they're gonna give it a little bit of thought and
Speaker 1: be like should I call here or should I raise?
Speaker 1: So those quick calls can be really meaningful for narrowing
Speaker 1: down a player's range to the weaker side of the range,
Speaker 1: and then that can encourage you to keep keep bluffing.
Speaker 1: For example, later in the hand. Let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the psychology of tells as they apply outside
Speaker 1: of poker. So obviously people have this, you know, for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, an inability off to hide the truth, even
Speaker 1: when they're trying to obscure it. Sometimes it's as simple
Speaker 1: as a vein pulsing in their neck that signals a
Speaker 1: faster heartbeat. What is the you know we're talking about earlier?
Speaker 1: A lot of the lessons of poker are applicable elsewhere.
Speaker 1: That's why we keep coming back to the subject. So
Speaker 1: in your research and in your work, what is the
Speaker 1: sort of abstractable lessons from reading poker tells that might
Speaker 1: be useful to people off the table? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's tough one to answer, because I
Speaker 1: think poker is such a unique space. I think it's
Speaker 1: more that the general behavioral you know, being good at
Speaker 1: being focused on people's behavior in general can make you
Speaker 1: good at reading people in general and poker or other places.
Speaker 1: But I think poker is so unique because it's even
Speaker 1: even amongst other competitive games. I would say getting good
Speaker 1: at poker tells will definitely help you with other competitive situations,
Speaker 1: whether it's other games, or whether it's negotiations or high
Speaker 1: stakes business meetings or whatever. And I think there are
Speaker 1: some takeaways. And I've definitely had people tell me they
Speaker 1: read my books and got better as as lawyers and
Speaker 1: as doctors like understanding getting more empathetic with the how
Speaker 1: their how their patients were acting, which was really cool
Speaker 1: for me to hear, because you know, I didn't have
Speaker 1: high hopes said it would that kind of stuff translates
Speaker 1: to other things. But I definitely think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of things that just makes more sense
Speaker 1: when you key into them at the poker table, like,
Speaker 1: for example, that the eye contact stuff. You know, you
Speaker 1: can you can get a lot of information about where
Speaker 1: people look and if they avoid contact with one person
Speaker 1: over time, you know, it can tell you that they
Speaker 1: don't like that person or whatever. You know, there's those
Speaker 1: kinds of little things that come up, signs of discomfort
Speaker 1: and pauses and speech and things like that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think it applies to a lot of things,
Speaker 1: but I think it definitely applies to the more competitive situations.
Speaker 1: So Zach, on this note, you actually have your own
Speaker 1: podcast that that's sort of on this topic about how
Speaker 1: people in various professions sort of read other people. What's
Speaker 1: been the most interesting takeaway from that, Like, what's one
Speaker 1: really interesting anecdote that you hadn't considered before. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of I've had a lot of fun with
Speaker 1: that show. I really liked the interview I did with
Speaker 1: Mark mcclisch, who wrote a book called I Know You
Speaker 1: Are Lying, and it was about statement analysis, and he
Speaker 1: used to do training with the U. S. Marshals and
Speaker 1: other law enforcement. He wrote books about analyzing written and
Speaker 1: verbal statements, and he was kind of partial influence and
Speaker 1: inspiration for me writing the Verbal Poker Tells book, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of taking that really focused idea of focusing on
Speaker 1: language and bringing it to the poker table. That was
Speaker 1: partially you know, I was inspired by him, so that
Speaker 1: I really am a fan of that one. But just
Speaker 1: recently I did an interview of an experienced restaurant industry
Speaker 1: service industry worker. He's managed restaurants and everything and eat.
Speaker 1: It's just some really interesting psychological tips on how, you know,
Speaker 1: eight staff is trained to get better tips using certain
Speaker 1: verbal patterns. You know, that's something I wouldn't have considered,
Speaker 1: you know, apparently that's like something they do in the
Speaker 1: in the restaurant chain business, you know, as a common
Speaker 1: you know, using these kind of like behind the scenes
Speaker 1: psychological strategies for putting people at ease and getting better
Speaker 1: tips and stuff like that. So yeah, that that was
Speaker 1: my concept for the podcast was just these interesting kind
Speaker 1: of hidden instances of psychology and manipulation, you know, Zack.
Speaker 1: Before we go, I gotta ask, what's the weirdest poker
Speaker 1: tell You've ever seen? Because some of them were sort
Speaker 1: of obvious across your arms and looking down. What's something
Speaker 1: very uh strange that you've seen? Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: should have a better ready answer for that. But one
Speaker 1: that just came out recently was somebody somebody had the
Speaker 1: most tells I've ever seen in like a short period
Speaker 1: of time. It was from this show Live at the
Speaker 1: Bike what they play on camera with hull Cards in
Speaker 1: California at the Bicycle Casino, and I wrote I wrote
Speaker 1: a piece about it for Poker News dot com. But
Speaker 1: and it was just it was just so many tells
Speaker 1: of strong hand basically in such a short period of time.
Speaker 1: Like it was basically like six different things I wrote about,
Speaker 1: you know, and and called out. I can't think of
Speaker 1: a really crazy ones were yeah, think they were the
Speaker 1: They were the normal ones, like nothing, you know, nothing
Speaker 1: too crazy. It was like acting uncertain before making a
Speaker 1: decent size bed and like a little shrug behavior and uh,
Speaker 1: you know all these signs of basically that acting acting
Speaker 1: week when you're actually strong, you know, those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: So lots of cliches. Yeah, I kind of clicheates, But
Speaker 1: I can't think of anything. I mean, I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: there's definitely, uh, some weird ones I've encountered, but nothing's
Speaker 1: screamed to mind. All right, Well, Zachary l Wood, Poker
Speaker 1: tell Experts really appreciate you coming on the podcast. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you, guys, I appreciate it. It's my honor, Tracy,
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed that episode. I love this idea that
Speaker 1: the demands of cinematic drama have sort of changed the
Speaker 1: way people view real life because obviously, again going back
Speaker 1: to how you would depict the game of poker, tells
Speaker 1: are probably the most interesting thing you could depict visually,
Speaker 1: even if the impact on the game in most games
Speaker 1: is pretty marginal. Right, It's kind of hard to visually
Speaker 1: depict someone thinking about whether they should draw another card
Speaker 1: or not. Joe, I gotta ask, what's your biggest tell
Speaker 1: when you play? Do you know? Oh? I really I
Speaker 1: do have a problem with my handshaking. I'm like, and
Speaker 1: I have that always, like if I just like pick
Speaker 1: up a glass or anything, or am I an slightly
Speaker 1: uncomfortable position my people who knows my handshakes, But it
Speaker 1: definitely gets accelerated at the poker table, and I think
Speaker 1: it's typically when I have a winning hand. But now
Speaker 1: you know, if anyone hears that, you can't be sure
Speaker 1: that I'm not trying to psych you out. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it might be a reverse tell, or it could be
Speaker 1: a reverse reverse tell. We'll never know. Remind me why
Speaker 1: poker overlaps with finance and markets so much. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of finance people are competitive and they like
Speaker 1: playing games for money, so sure they play poker, But
Speaker 1: what's the applicability of the things we learn from poker
Speaker 1: to markets and investing. I think it really has to
Speaker 1: do with the fact that you can only It's a
Speaker 1: very open ended game and you can only have You
Speaker 1: could never calculate the odds perfectly. So there are other
Speaker 1: games of chance. There are other gambling games in which
Speaker 1: you know the odds going in. So, for example, if
Speaker 1: you were to play roulette, you know going in the
Speaker 1: odds that on any given spin it's either going to
Speaker 1: be black or red or a specific number, and you
Speaker 1: could calculate them perfectly. It is impossible to do that
Speaker 1: in poker because obviously there's math involved, but you just
Speaker 1: cannot fully calculate how the humans are going to perform
Speaker 1: elsewhere on the table. And I think that's like that's
Speaker 1: the relevance to markets, Like we we know all the data,
Speaker 1: we're drowning in data, but you can't fully calculate how
Speaker 1: people are going to behave under periods of extreme stress,
Speaker 1: under periods of tension and panics. You four is, there's
Speaker 1: only so much you can number crunch, and there's a
Speaker 1: certain element of human judgment reading the room, reading, the table, reading,
Speaker 1: and that's why people try to uh, you know, positioning
Speaker 1: and sentiment, all these measures to sort of get at
Speaker 1: the aspects of the market that people can't really fully calculate.
Speaker 1: The humans are the wild card. Yeah, look, look I
Speaker 1: made a card pun Okay, great, very well, all right,
Speaker 1: Well we've done another episode on poker, so it's it's
Speaker 1: my turn next week and we're going to get back
Speaker 1: to capital flows and emerging markets. I think great. I
Speaker 1: can't wait. Okay, this has been an another episode of
Speaker 1: the Odd Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe wise
Speaker 1: It though. You can follow me on Twitter at the Stalwart,
Speaker 1: and you should follow our guest on Twitter, Zachary Lwood.
Speaker 1: His handle is a poker player. He's also the host
Speaker 1: of the People Who Read People podcasts. You should check
Speaker 1: that out. He discusses psychology and behavior at various activities,
Speaker 1: and you should follow our producers on Twitter to for
Speaker 1: for Foreheads He's at foreheads T as well as Laura Carlson.
Speaker 1: She's at Laura M. Carlson and don't forget to follow
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg head of podcast, Francesca Leap at Francesco Today.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.