Reading loose, relaxed behavior from people in the real (non-poker) world

On a hugely reliable behavioral pattern in all areas of life

Yakov Hirsch is a professional poker player: he specializes in limit poker and plays in the L.A. area. He got his start in the world of games playing chess; one of his first jobs was working at a non-profit in New York City, teaching chess to kids at schools. 

Yakov also writes about the Israel/Palestine conflict: he's written for Mondoweiss.com and for Tablet Magazine, and at his own blog. My talk with Yakov for the podcast about Israel/Palestine wasn't something we set up in response to the attack on Israel by Hamas: Yakov and I had had our talk scheduled for weeks. Our talk was a sort of follow-up to a talk I had with James Kirchick about antisemism: Kirchick is someone that Yakov has often criticized for his views on Israel/Palestine, and Yakov had sent me some thoughts about Kirchick when he saw that I interviewed him. I thought in order to give some balance to my previous episode, I'd talk to Yakov to learn about his views.

The link to my talk with Yakov is here, but below I want to write a little more about what I see as Yakov's skill in understanding people. I think he is a good reader of people: I think, even when he greatly disagrees with someone, even when he thinks they've done something horrible, he is trying his best to set aside his emotions and ask "What does this person really believe? What do they want?"

Yakov and I talked, in private conversation, about a few other things in the news that had some relation to poker. 

For example, we learned that both of us, from early in Trump's presidency, thought it was quite unlikely the Trump/Russia investigation would yield much fruit. And this was based on the fact that Trump's exuberance and lightness in talking about Russia and the enquiry struck us as the behavior of someone who is innocent and is not worried (to take one example; the time at a press conference he said that he hoped Russia could find Hillary Clinton's missing emails). This is the same basic pattern underlying one of the most reliable tells in poker: when someone making a big bet acts very relaxed and exuberant and is loose in their mannerisms and language. This is almost always because that person is relaxed and is value-betting. Bluffers simply don't feel that comfortable in such spots and are much more buttoned up. 

Another thing we talked about: how both of us almost immediately thought that Robbi Jade-Lew, accused of cheating at high stakes poker by Garrett Adelstein, was innocent for the same reason. Her physical and verbal behavior during and after the hand, and in subsequent interviews, was loose and relaxed. It didn't match at all the image of someone who was guilty and had something to hide. Such was my own confidence based on that alone that I would have bet a large amount of money on her innocence (if there was a way to bet on that). 

I’ll also say: I’m someone who has a lot of humility and uncertainty about reading behavior in real-world situations (like interviews, interrogations, press conferences, speeches, etc.). There are a lot of “behavior bullshitters” who speak as if they can frequently and reliably get information from people’s behaviors in such spots, and I have often spent time criticizing those people for their irresponsible work. But the pattern discussed above is one of the more reliable ones, and it is present in so many areas: you see it in games like poker, you see it in interrogations, you see it in all sorts of real-world scenarios. If someone is exuberant and loose in their behaviors when discussing a specific topic, they’re unlikely to be nervous or uncomfortable on that topic. This is not just about discomfort and anxiety; it’s also just about the fact that people with things to hide have to expend cognitive effort to think through the implications of the things they say and what impact their statements will have. People who are guilty have to think about that a lot; people who are innocent don’t think about it much at all.

These things are, of course, not foolproof. If it came out that Trump had collaborated with the Russians, or was compromised by them, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised. I’m just explaining why both Yakov and I thought it was unlikely that such a thing was true.

Yakov and I might do another episode in future where we talk about these things, and more. I think Yakov is a good reader of people. I don't always agree with his takes, but I think he is interested in the same things I am: trying to understand the people around us, and trying to avoid worst-case interpretations of their behaviors. This can often mean recognizing that our biases and emotions can lead us down wrong paths: trying to see people clearly means trying to recognize those inner biases and strive for truth and nuance. 

Here's that link again to the episode with Yakov and I talking about antisemitism and Israel/Palestine: https://behavior-podcast.com/why-is-criticism-of-israel-sometimes-called-antisemitic-with-yakov-hirsch