As the title suggests (extracted from Lady Gaga's massively overplayed single), a good poker face is one that is unreadable: apathetic but not disinterested, intense but not concerned, aloof but not too lofty. You get the idea. Basically, the best poker players are the ones who can manipulate everyone else without being manipulated themselves.
So, the burning question at hand: what lies (no pun intended) inside the brains of these deceptive Rico Suaves that differentiates them from the everyday David Hasselhoffs?
According to a study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the best "strategic deceivers" are more apt to utilize the parts of the brain related to complex decision-making, goal achievement and understanding the beliefs of those surrounding them. These areas--the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, left Brodmann area 10 and right temporoparietal junction, respectively--were identified via functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) while subjects participated in an interpersonal bargaining game. The subjects who did the best were those who bid higher when the true value was lower and lower when the true value was higher; however, to maintain a sense of believability, they also had to bid realistically. The subjects who performed worse in the bargaining task were those who were honest in their bidding and those who bid numbers only weakly related to the true value.
While it's true that most of us were raised giving credence to honesty as the best policy, this data may warrant an excuse to consider otherwise (especially if you're that guy walking home shoeless from Texas Hold 'em).
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