Gonzalo López
“Whenever I played poker, I wondered if there was something I could do to discover if a guy was lying to me when he makes three barrels,” begins the conversation with “Colo” on the other side of his home computer screen. “So, when I started training at my job, I discovered that there were things the brain did. How behavior meant something, and then I said: ‘Aha! That’s the way’.
Gonzalo trained in non-verbal communication and assures that it is a tool poker players should use when making decisions, although he is very clear: “There is no common pattern among all players that confirms whether a player is lying or not. There is no dictionary for tells.”
-So, how can non-verbal communication help us in poker?
-To correctly interpret non-verbal communication in players, we first have to identify what type of player they are. Knowing who we are facing is fundamental. Because creating a player profile will indicate their baseline behavior. Once they deviate from this behavior, that is when the real tell exists.
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Gonzalo López is a specialist in non-verbal communication who helps poker players “train behavior reading, image control, and detection of inconsistencies.”
“A player,” he explains, “has to be 100% focused at the start of the tournament, and that is what leads to being able to develop these profiles. The moment you are not in the hand is when you have to observe. Also, doing it while we are in the hand costs money. It costs chips. Therefore, when we are not in the hand, it’s free and even easier. Obviously, it is a difficult task, but it helps a lot to observe when you are not in the hand.”
With all the information Colo López has gathered over all these years, he created a seminar where he helps players “read opponents, but also hide that non-verbal information since, although very difficult to identify, it is also difficult to hide.”
There, players learn how non-verbal communication can complement decision-making. “One has to know the theory and know the game well, but I also believe that if you can identify these behavioral deviations, you can gain a great advantage,” he concludes.
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Cover photo: Julieta Calvo
