Alright so I want to float a hypothesis I have, would love it if there was any data on this, but I doubt it. It would be awesome to try to quantify this.

I think that it's likely that the way people play poker is affected by the mood at the table. If there is a lot of conversation, joking, friendly banter, then people will probably VPIP more, play more passively and not think as hard about their decisions.

Conversely if there is little conversations and a few people are in a bad mood due to losing and there are a lot of serious, quiet faces at the table, people will play more competitively, aggressively and think more about their decisions. VPIP will also probably be less.


My hypothesis / feeling is based on the idea of how primitive our evolved brains are and how sensitive they are to social cues. We are affected by a lot of stuff we are not consciously aware of that affects how we feel and what decisions we make. Stupid things like procrastinating, cheating on your partner, eating unhealthy food, etc are all examples.

So, what do you think? Is there any sense to this idea? Would you like to see an experimental setup?

You could have the same group of players and in one instance they wouldn't be allowed to talk and another they would be, and they'd play a long enough session for sample size and we'd record the results.

I don't know how powerful this effect is but I always try to be the friendly fun guy who lightens the mood at the table and gets people to relax. I feel like I can win more pots by c-betting this way and generally have people play more straightforward.

(DNeg used to say that people didn't mind losing to him because he was a nice guy)