Female Poker Pro Tips: 4 Ways To Spot A Lying Lover
Vanessa Rousso's can't-miss "tells" could save your love life.
What did LimeLife's celeb editor experience last week at PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas? Besides loads of celeb run-ins (Kenneth Cole, Kelly Rowland, rock icon Slash and A-list interviews to share soon - promise!), I also had the coveted chance to interview Vanessa Rousso, one of the best-known female pros in the poker world. Rousso is a Duke grad (we love beauty and brains!), a former law student and psychology buff who - as one of the five highest-earning women in poker and winner of the women's event at PCA - is known for her ability to read her mostly-male poker opponents. She's also praised for what some experts refer to as her "lethal" ability catch bad boys when they're bluffing.
Plus, last April 26-year-old Rousso married fellow poker pro and former Hollywood actor Chad Brown, so romance is a topic near to her heart. "We're soulmates," she says about her husband...but she admits their profession makes them razor-sharp relationship analysts. "Since we're poker [pros], we're both hyper-logical, strong-willed, strong-minded people at heart because those are some of the characteristics of successful players." Tiger Woods' wife Elin Nordegren might have found Vanessa Rousso's tell-all relationship tips useful! Here Rousso makes it near-impossible for any player to keep secrets up his sleeve.
Regarding body language in poker - and for our purposes, in an intimate relationship - Rousso explains, "The important thing to realize is that behavior is actually rooted in our DNA." Rousso says that we can use a man's behavior to discover what's going on his mind, and all we have to do is "tackle the process in a logical way."
Here's where to start: know his baseline behaviors. The first step Vanessa Rousso uses to profile her opponents is to study how they act and react in everyday situations. "Baseline behaviors are true indicators of intentions, and they're things that [come out] when someone's not trying to manipulate their own behavior," she said. Study your guy for his natural behaviors - does he lean over for a pat and a kiss when he sees the dog he's had since he was a kid? In contrast, watch how he jumps back and throws up his arms in disgust when he spills a drink on the kitchen floor. "The first step to using someone's behavior to discover what they're really doing is to know what they do under normal circumstances," Rousso said. "Once you know that, you easily see when someone deviates from this baseline behavior."
She explains that when a guy deviates from his normal mannerisms, he's giving away a hugely important key that poker players call a "tell," which is a million-dollar nonverbal cue that reveals what opponents are really thinking. "When they're doing something different than what they normally do," Rousso said about poker players and men, "it's just a matter of discovering why they're [behaving] differently." Rousso says that recognizing tells is the key to learning your guy's true intentions.
The freeze. Rousso had me picture a male poker player who has a relaxed baseline habit of playing with his chips at the table. "This guy has been sitting there, tapping, playing with his chips. Now he's in a hand with you and suddenly you've noticed that he froze." Rousso says if a guy seems caught off guard - if stops his movement, swallows, or holds his breath - then this may be a sign that he's lying. "When [animals] freeze," she said, "They're feeling threatened. If we can't fight and we can't flee, then we freeze." This frozen response is our basic fight-or-flight instinct at work, Rousso explains, and this is how a creature reacts when they're in a confrontation scenario. "When someone freezes, it should indicate that they're very uncomfortable with the situation. They're often bluffing. They're nervous, or scared."
The lean-back. Rousso explained that in poker if a person pulls away from a situation physically, it often means they don't have confidence in their cards. In poker, she said, "Leaning back is a way of distancing themselves from the cards in front of them." And in romance, it's important to be prepared for your man's instant-distant response when you call him on the felt to ask where he was last night. If you see him jut back or distance himself from you, again, he may be trying to flee from having to tell you the truth.
The locked gaze. Is your guy looking so hard into your eyes when he's speaking that his "honest" glare appears too good to be true? Vanessa Rousso encouraged me to think about wildlife again. "Say you're an animal, and I'm another animal," she said, "and I lock eyes with you. How would you interpret that behavior?"
"That we're gonna fight," I replied.
I was right. And in poker, players will often stare their opponents in the eyes when they're bluffing to make the impression that they have a stronger hand than they actually do. If you ask your guy if he's cheating and he stares you in the eye with mad strength, that actually could be a bad sign. Poker pros say that the player whose hand is solid doesn't have to make eye contact with anyone around them, because their "story," or their cards, speak for themselves. "As poker players, we always play the opposite [from real life]," Rousso explains. She says that eye movement is actually a physiological response that, along with words, is easy to manipulate. If your guy is lying, Rousso says, he may lock into your pupils to "project the opposite of what's really going on."
The tremor. I watched Vanessa Rousso give a poker workshop to a group of women at PCA, and when one attendee received an amazing hand of cards, Rousso called her out. "I knew you had good cards," she said, "because I saw your hands tremor."
Rousso says that a tremor in the hands of a player (such a fun poker pun!) is one of the two most revealing tells in the game, because the tremor is an involuntary chemical reaction that comes from a rush of adrenaline when the player has just received a really good hand. So here's how the tremor can work in your love life: if you've been suspicious that your sweetie is up to no good - especially if you think it's a serious affair - gently take his hands in yours. Then play innocent with him and casually ask him whom the Sheila in his phone is. If you're still suspicious when he answers, continue keeping your cool and pretend to buy the story. Then pay close attention to what you experience in his touch: if he thinks he's getting away with knowing something that you don't, you may feel a rush of adrenaline take over his hands and make them shake for a split-second in your grip.
The foot move. "This is my number-one tell with guys," Vanessa Rousso says. "Their feet will twitch while they're talking to you." Rousso says this is a huge indicator that a guy is lying to you directly, or super uncomfortable with what he's saying. When a guy's foot moves while he's talking to you, it's a sign that he wants to run from the situation. "Instinctually, [he wants] to flee," Rousso says, "so [his] feet will twitch [because] he can't get up and run away." Vanessa Rousso calls the foot twitch a "big fat red flag" and says she uses it a lot with guys (but it works on women too!).
Vanessa Rousso isn't just a star at PokerStars Caribbean Adventure - she's also a GoDaddy.com girl alongside Danica Patrick, a 2009 Sports Illustrated model and a celebrity judge on E!'s Bank of Hollywood with Tinseltown tokens like Candy Spelling. With well over 50 million Americans playing poker, is Vanessa Rousso one of the game's smartest and hottest women? Check out this slideshow with some pics of Rousso at PCA...then you be the judge.
Get FREE LimeLife Celeb News Alerts On Your Phone
Get the hottest daily celebrity headlines sent directly to your mobile phone from LimeLife.
RSS Feed
Everything I Like, Wherever I Am
