Poker Face Idiom Examples

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05:49
31 Oct

One of my favorite things about being part of a niche culture is the special language that develops around it. While we may not always think of it as such, poker most certainly has its own lexicon full of words and phrases that a layman would never understand. I honestly doubt my own mother would know what the “flop” was, much less a phrase like, “angle shooting.” However, there is one poker term that, among all others, has risen out of our game and into the common language at large, the “poker face.”

The real message behind Lady Gagas infamous song 'Poker Face'. The song subliminally advocates oral sex by repeating the phrase poke-her-face over 15x and fuck- her- face 7x. Wore a poker face idiom meaning, wore a poker face exampleThey can change biochemistry, affect consciousness, remove inflammation, or lower temperatures. In terms of composition, such drugs are divided into narcotic and non-narcotic. Such remedies help if there is no phlegm, wore a poker face idiom meaning. More examples I can never have a poker face. Anybody looking at me can tell exactly what I'm thinking. The high bidder kept a poker face after being declared the winner.

The phrase poker face is a phrase thrown around constantly to refer to keeping one’s emotions in check. Upon meeting someone with a stoic nature one might comment, “That’s quite a poker face you’ve got there.” In another instance one might say, “The boss can smell fear. If you go in there, You’d better have your poker face ready.” But where did the phrase come from? Has it existed since the dawn of poker or is it secretly a recent invention? I set out to track it down.

My first google searches were fruitless. I got all sorts of results defining the phrase and many more about the hit Lady Gaga song of the same name, but no one knew where it started. I started combing through encyclopedias looking for an entry on the phrase. “Poker” always had results, but no one had a story for the creation of “poker face.” Finally I resorted to a rare trick called using something I learned in college. I learned some years ago that the Oxford English Dictionary includes, among its vast wealth of information, a list of important places where a word or phrase has been quoted in publication. Usually, this includes the word’s first instance of publication. I searched for “poker face” and after following that trail for a bit, I finally came up with this:

Here are 6 more idioms with poker connections. 1.“The Cold War made everyone fear a political showdown.” (Confrontation) The term ‘showdown’ is often used to describe a moment of truth in which two or more people will face each other in a final confrontation. The word is often used in sports commentaries when there is a final match. Other Common Examples of Jargon UFO – Unidentified Flying Object Poker face – A blank expression Back burner – Something low in priority, putting something off till a later date On Cloud nine – Very happy Sweet tooth – A great love of all things sweet Ballpark figure – A numerical estimated value Gumshoe/Private Eye – Detective.

It follows that the possession of a good poker face is an advantage. No one who has any pretensions to good play will betray the value of his hand by gesture, change of countenance, or any other symptom.'Cavendish. Round Games at Cards. London: Thomas De La Rue & Co. 1875;

As far as I can tell, this quotation is the first ever published use of the phrase “poker face.” It comes from a book about card games and gambling that was originally published back in 1875! While it is possible that the phrase had some use before it was ever in printed form, there is no way to prove it, and we must give credit to Cavendish, whose first name I was unable to find.

Frankly, the whole book is quite interesting as it teaches what, at the time, must have been quite new to a lot of people. Moreover, I got a kick out of some of the older terms used. For example, while the author never calls it “Blackjack,” He does go into great detail about a French game called “Vingt-Et-Un” which translates to “21.” It is played nearly identically to modern Blackjack except that you bet after receiving your first card. It also appears as though a “full house” used to just be called a “full hand.” If you enjoy the history of our sport and want to check it out, can find the free version here, thanks to Google Books.

As to the rest of my questions, it seems the idea of the poker face came around a significant time later than the game itself. While it is very hard to pin down exactly when “Poker” became popular, card games of skill and betting have existed for hundreds of years previous to 1875. While the word ”poker” itself entered the English language some time in the early 1800’s, games like Brag (English), Poque (French), and Pochen (German) are well evidenced back into the first half of the 1700’s. Each of these games revolve similarly around cards and gambling. They are likely the progenitors of the poker we know today. And of course, these games could not have been played without bluffing, so the idea of concealing your facial tells probably predates our popular phrase by a good 100-150 years.

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A woman with a neutral expression

A blank expression is a facial expression characterized by neutral positioning of the facial features, implying a lack of strong emotion. It may be caused by a lack of emotion, depression, boredom or slight confusion, such as when someone refers to something which the listener does not understand. A deliberately-induced blank expression meant to conceal one's emotions is also known as a poker face, referring to the common practice of maintaining one's composure when playing the card gamepoker.^[1]^[2]

The term poker face was used outside the game of poker by American sportswriters in the 1920s to describe a competitor who appeared unaffected by stressful situations (an important skill when playing poker for money, to avoid giving an opponent any tells about one's hand).^[3] It is similarly used with reference to marketers and salespeople during business negotiations.^[4]

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General references[edit]

Jan Hargrave (2010). Poker Face: The Art of Analyzing Poker Tells. Kendall Hunt Pub Co. ISBN0-7575-7789-X.
David Naimark; Ansar Haroun (2011). Poker Face in Mental Health Practice: A Primer on Deception Analysis and Detection. W W Norton & Co Inc. ISBN0-393-70699-0.

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