I've kind of been on a weird kick lately of watching police interrogation videos kind of obsessively, and I think a lot of lessons could be learned from police interrogations and applied to live poker.

Incongruent Body Language

In police interrogations one of the things that investigators will look for is incongruent body language, or body language that conveys a different meaning than what the suspect is saying.

Here is a good example. Alyssa Bustamante murdered a young girl when she was 15, and she was interrogated by an investigator. When asked if she murdered the girl or caused her disappearance, Bustamante subtly displays incongruent body language that is inconsistent with what she is saying. She denies the questions and shakes her head no, but then subtly changes her head movement to a nodding, indicating yes.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42tV6oM48NQ&t=3040s


Here's another good example of incongruent body language, just the inverse. Also, a much worse liar. Alyssa Bustamante at 15 years old was a much better liar than whoever this absolute clown is. This is a purported UFO/UAP whistleblower who alleges to have insider knowledge about the existence of non-human space craft and deceased non-human pilots that were recovered by the Government. Incongruent body language does not get any clearer than this, and I don't think this guy would even be able to successfully lie to a box of raisins.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjLcIxB2jU0&t=20s




Blatant lies. He's saying alien pilots have been found, and "believe it or not, it's true!" while vigorously shaking his head no.

Bustamante's was far more subtle, and I think it was actually kind of cloaked in another thing to look for in interrogations.


Self Pacifying Behavior

People subconsciously exhibit self pacifying behavior when they are feeling stress or unsure of themselves. Examples could be a person rubbing their arms, or rubbing their hands together, or rocking back and forth, and in Alyssa Bustamante's interrogation, I believe she engaged in self pacifying behavior by way of nodding her head. She does this throughout the interrogation, and I think it's because she is gently rocking herself back and forth in the chair she is sitting in. At the beginning of the interrogation, right when she enters the room, she remarks that the chair rocks, and throughout the interview she rocks the chair in what I think is clearly a self pacifying behavior. But it also opens up a tell in incongruent body language. She is asked if she murdered Elizabeth Olten, and she says no, and shakes her head no, but she only briefly shakes her head no, it subtly turns into a nodding, indicating yes. This is her incongruent body language and self pacifying behavior coming through at the same time, and she's a lot more level headed and to put it bluntly in poker terms, she's a much more stone cold bluffer than the chump claiming insider knowledge about UFO/UAPs.


So how do you apply this to live poker? Well number one is you don't make the mistake of not looking at your opponent. You want to study your opponent and take in their body language and actions, and examine if they are incongruent with each other, or if they are engaging in self pacifying behaviors.

Does your opponent go all in, and then start rubbing his chin and rocking back and forth? That may be a self pacifying behavior, conveying that he does not feel sure of himself, meaning he does not have the nuts. Does he check a flop to you but then sit up straight and puff his chest out and start staring at you, conveying strength, like he just flopped the nuts and is trying to trap you? That may be incongruent body language. The actions that poker players take, their betting, their checking, that is what they are saying. That is like talking. It often times will not match up with their body language.

So without being too obvious like you're a scientist staring at a lab right trying to spot a tumor behind its ear, pay close attention to what the opponent says with their game actions, and pay close attention to what they say with their body language. There are good and bad liars, and there are good and bad poker players. The bad poker players may be just as obvious as that absolute joke of a UFO/UAP whistleblower. The good poker players might be as stone cold as Alyssa Bustamante and you can just barely pick up on incongruent body language and self pacifying behaviors.

The most important things are: LOOK AT YOUR OPPONENTS. If you feel like your best way to beat your opponents is by just staring at the table and not moving like a statute the entire four hour session, this isn't going to work for you. Loosen up, don't be a stone, and don't be shy. Look at your opponents.

Also, once you finally do pick up on incongruent body language and self pacifying behaviors, and you figure out why the opponent is displaying those behaviors and what it means for the hand they have, DO NOT LET ON THAT YOU KNOW! If you can read a person's body language in this way, and they cannot read yours in this way, you have a HUGE EDGE on them! If you blow the fact that you figured them out in this way, which is actually a really deep insight and understanding into the person, you've totally blown your edge on them.

Anyway, I just wanted to make this post cause I've been thinking a lot about this over the past month or so and I've been thinking about how it relates to live poker. Obviously this will not apply to online. Hopefully this makes sense to people and you got something out of reading this.

Thank you, and free Alyssa Bustamante!

I suggest you read "Read em and Reap".

https://www.amazon.com/PHIL-HELLMUTH.../dp/0061198595

That's one I haven't read, I'll check it out, thanks Doc!

hey I watch these too sometimes.

I actually just get annoyed by the commentary sometimes.
Like they have to comment on every little thing, sometimes
painfully obvious stuff.

I think physcology has many branches. So I don't know if
you could find anything useful by studying them that would
apply to poker. But maybe you could.

Thanks for the link anyways. I do think poker players should
probably study some physcology anyways.

I’m a forensic psychologist. I watch these videos from time to time but they tend to be pretty superficial and sometimes inaccurate.

I don’t know if there’s a lot to glean from them other than some rudimentary concepts that don’t exactly correlate to the poker setting. Probably the best benefit is that it gets you thinking about those sorts of things.

Luv that material. Often this type of analysis can be systematized subconsciously into an intuitive reaction as to whether someone is telling the truth and/or being authentic. I used to be addicted to these shows and often marveled at the seeming cluelessness of some cops to hear the truth or falsity of the interrogated, when it was blatant. Recently I was writing something unrelated, but mentioned the fact the synchronicity of the day before the Golden Gate Killer arrest broke a few months ago, another show was on about it and I suddenly realized the perp was a cop. I'll be darned the next day the story broke he was arrested, after decades, and he was indeed a cop when his spree began. Anyway, in my article I was saying I wouldn't hire me for police work, for shootouts, even for interrogations. But I would hire me as consultant and observer of interrogations, probably morphing actually into interrogator, because the questions at times are critical. Being attuned to falsity, diversion, deception, self-deception, subtle forms of denial and evasion, is like anything else, a skill of a minority of people. So it isn't unlike a calculus problem: some see it effortlessly and some are blind and oblivious to it. No magic then, just a honed skill. Consider the people that believe Mikki Mase's stuff. The opposite end of the spectrum there.

I'm in Psych grad school and took one course on Psychology and Law. We don't have a broadly applicable model that works well for telling when people are using deception. I think the case in these YouTube videos (I've seen some of them) are designed to be persuasive, but they overstate the case.

I think an underrated idea is: get to know them. There's a reason you can pickup what is going on with a friend or romantic partner easier than with a stranger. We see Negreanu do this all the time. He reads players based on the feel he gets with them through hours of conversation. Esfandiari also. The sick-reads guys are often table-talkers and it isn't coincidence.

Did you study serial killers at all? BTK is back in the news! Likely responsible for unsolved murders in Oklahoma and Missouri.

I second this

I was once a post grad in Pych (In another life)

There are no real model of body language, and in the forensic psychology modules I studded a lot of the experiments where terrible as is the data.
There is a spate of body language ideas from NLP, Like the direction they eyes look when someone is thinking. It is complete pseudo science.

I had nir heard BTK was in teh news again but I am in the UK, the headlines have been dominated by Lucy Letby

Regards


R

And I thought I was the only one who watched these things. Nice to know there are people out there just as sick as me.