By now(hopefully) you’ve come to realize, that when you see an opponent with cards is happy, you should probably get out of the hand. Or at the very least, proceed with extreme caution, because they’re surely on the make. Now that you’ll have a little easier time spotting this when it happens, I want to distinguish the difference between happiness and anger, in relation to the mouth.
Now, anger is not to be confused with discontent. When a player is discontent at the poker table, its usually accompanied by the feeling of being beat. (I’ve described this as ‘dread’) and its something every player will experience at some point. Whether the reason is because of a bad run of cards, multiple losing sessions, or problems in your personal life; that sneak out from the back of your mind when you aren’t in a hand. It instills the feeling that you have no luck, or just aren’t meant to come out on top.
Anger, is usually accompanied with the feeling of what I categorize as ‘subtle-rage’. They aren’t flipping out, causing a scene, but he’s decided at some point in, or before the hand that they’re going to take somebody’s money.
These players are often mistaken for being or getting ‘aggressive’ and since to remain aggressive, you have to open your hand range and its usually presumed, that ½ or most of the time, that they are getting out of line.
But anger doesn’t just magically show up. It festers, and they’ve been waiting for a premium(to their range) hand to release it. This can cause you to be baited into calling large raises with marginal hands, just because of your position in relation to them, or misread on their mood. Or it can cause you to be intimidated out of the hand.(Which you should never allow to happen.) When whats really going on is, the opponent is just irritated by another player’s(or your) play whether collectively, or just in one hand. Once that’s seeded in their mind; its only a matter of time before they’re going to feel the need to intervene, and try to teach somebody a lesson. It’s important to be able to HONESTLY evaluate your hand here.
Pre-flop is the only part of poker where I believe you need to play the cards, before you play the player. For example, theres no reason to call 67 suited to a 5bet+, preflop at a cash game. I don’t care if you ARE on the button. You are essentially going into the hand with 67 vs. at LEAST one face card, or a pocket pair. Let it go, and wait for a better SITUATION. Its not that 67 suited is a horrible hand, its just more likely to be beat when facing a raise like that **by somebody who is angry**. I’m not telling you to allow yourself to be pushed around. Although an exemption to this would be in a tournament, there are a lot of other factors to consider, and you may or may not want to see a flop. But that’s only because of the TIME constraints that you have to deal with in a tournament.(rising blinds)
Now that you know why you need this information, I’m going to tell you how to find it. I’ve already explained how to find ‘happy’ in the mouth area. You would think anger would be a lot easier to see, but that’s not the case. Due to sunglasses, and hats, a good portion of the giveaways from the nose up are usually hidden or obscured.(for instance, *from the nose up*, a player with a hat and sunglasses is more prone to look confused, or as if he’s analyzing the hand when hes actually fuming. This is because the band of the hat restricts some of the movements in the forehead, and the nose pads on the sunglasses is constantly inducing a slight downward pull due to the weight of the glasses, thus restricting motion between, and at the edges of the eyebrows.) So where do you look? The same place you look to find ‘happy’. The mouth.
Anger and happiness both present themselves, almost identically in the corners of the mouth. The corners of an angry person’s mouth will usually flash the same upward curl as a happy person’s, and for only about 1/15th of a second(same as happy). So ****its very fast, and you NEED to watch for it as the cards are turned over and they see them regardless of the street. The difference however between the two, is found in the middle of the mouth. Normally, when an angry person does this, one of two subconscious things happen within the mouth.
They either clench their jaw, causing the jaw muscles to tighten and draw their skin in that direction.(don’t worry about what part of the jaw to look at, bear with me) The other thing was actually first discovered in primates; and in humans, it tends to happen in those who have even the slightest overbite. It involves the jaw moving forward and aligning the lower teeth with the upper. This is a primal instinct to show ALL of your teeth before attacking, or aggressively defending(bet/raise/reraise in poker). In both cases, what happens is it forces the lips to separate, and ****if you see his teeth flash, he’s angry.**** This happens because simultaneously, the cheek(smile) muscles are also pull upward at the corners at the same time as the upper lip ‘stiffening‘. Its nearly impossible to keep your lips pressed together unless you’re consciously aware that you do this in these situations. But even then, it takes a lot of practice to be able to, tell your brain; to target and signal specific muscles in the face, not to do, what they’ve been doing automatically, 24/7, for their entire lives.
Its important to avoid playing against a player who is angry, more often than not, because unlike when its forming, it builds. When released, its usually released all at once.(unless they’re REALLY losing. But in that instance they were on tilt before they got angry, and probably won’t last long, or reload a large stack anyways.) Once the anger is ‘out of their system’ and they snap at the table, they’ll usually calm down for awhile. Now sitting with the attitude that their ‘point’; whatever it was, has been proven. I’ve noticed, they’re more prone to falling for some sort of trap after ‘Rage betting’ a big enough pot away from the table.
However if you can obviously tell a player is angry at YOU and is targeting you, you might want to take a break. Go walk around to see if there is another table to sit at. Go out and get your own drink, go to the bathroom, then come back, and move. When asked why you’re moving just smile, and say, ‘theres more money over there.’ They’re not going to actually count(and they know you just had time that you could‘ve), and it’ll draw a few smiles for a solid exit quote. That way it doesn’t look like you’re running away,(in case you play with anyone at that table again) and you don’t have to stay at that table, starting every hand on the defensive.
If you are in a casino that doesn’t have open table selection, go to the desk and tell them you’d like to switch, and they’ll cycle you through the waiting list. So go grab a snack, and/or a drink and come back to the table. Food is best, because it’ll allow you to look like you’re staying out of more hands because you’re busy eating, and not because you’re uncomfortable at the table(really you‘re just waiting to move, or for a TRULY premium hand.) Then when the desk calls you to move, it’ll look like its just your turn to move, rather than it look like you’re leaving because a specific player, or specific hand’s result. It may sound a little dodgy at first. Personally, I’d rather be dodgy, than bled dry; or talk myself into gambling at a cash table.