Poker Face
When you first start playing poker, one of the terms you will learn and have to master is how to put on your poker face. You may take a long time to learn how to evaluate your hands, how to bet, how to actually play the cards and learn to read the other players, but you will find that learning how to put your poker face on will come quickly.
Your poker face simply stated is an emotionless expression that you paste on your face when you sit down to play with other flesh a blood players so that they cannot tell what kind of a hand you have. Players will take advantage of you if you show in your face that you have a great hand and then start bidding accordingly, or if you look like the end of the world is coming when your hand is awful and you are trying to bluff. If you don't put on your poker face, your face and body expressions will give you away every time and make you a target for the other players.
As necessary as a poker face is when you are playing a real game of physical poker it is not as needed a prop today as it was years ago, because today in this age of technology, most folks are playing poker on an online poker room. Because of this fact, your opponents cannot see your face or your body for that matter, and have no way of reading any kind of expression or body language at all.
And so be it...most of us that like to play poker are stuck playing against faceless, nameless people who really don't care if you have a poker face or not. Playing in this manner takes a lot of the fun out of playing poker, because half of the fun of the game is the bidding, the bluffing, and the poker face put on by every player.
Trying to read what your opponent is saying behind that poker face is a science unto itself and is a real challenge to all the players when the game gets down and dirty and there is a lot of money at stake in the pot. Some folks get real nervous when they are trying to bluff, or when they are trying to bid a great hand for the least amount of money put out, and they let their guard down and show cracks in their poker face for all the playing world to see.
When you come right down to it, there is no substitute for playing around a real table with real players, holding real cards, feeling the felt on the table as you slide your chips into the pot and feeling the tension in the air. Such an atmosphere spurs you to try and play the very best game of poker you can with the cards you have, and keep your poker face on and in place so no one can read your thoughts or your hand. giving you the ability to come out on top as the winner.