To Be a Better Philanthropist, Think Like a Poker Player | Liv Boeree on Effective Altruism

To Be a Better Philanthropist, Think Like a Poker Player

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A good poker face can win you a fortune or help you sell a difficult lie, but that term might be leading us all astray. For poker champ Liv Boeree, calling someone's bluff isn't about their face at all, it's often much more about their body as a whole—and one part in particular. "The feet are often the most reliable thing to look at on your opponent because they might be completely stoic in their face but their feet are bouncing around," she says. We're all hyper aware of our faces as a primary point of communication, but our bodies are speaking more loudly than we may realize. Typically, "the lower down on the body that you're looking at, the more reliable the information," she says. Keep in mind, reading body language is an art not a science, but thanks to Boeree's years of experience at the poker table she highlights some classic behaviors of bluffers, and reliable strategies for those who want to call them out. Find more from Liv Boeree at www.livboeree.com.

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LIV BOEREE:

Olivia "Liv" Boeree is a poker player, TV presenter and model from England who won the 2010 European Poker Tour in Sanremo. Born in Kent, Boeree studied at Ashford School before going on to earn a First Class Honours degree in Physics with Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. She was the #1 ranked female player on the Global Poker Index as of November 2015, and #6 on the female all-time live poker winnings list.

Boeree was a keen guitar player in her early twenties, specializing in the heavy metal genre. In University she played lead guitar in the band Dissonance, and in 2006 she briefly featured as lead guitarist for rock/goth band Nemhain before starting her career in poker.

Boeree also modeled in her early twenties for rock and alternative lifestyle features.

Boeree was introduced to the poker industry when she was selected as one of five contestants for the reality TV show Ultimatepoker.com Showdown, which aired on Five in Autumn 2005.

After the show, Boeree began playing poker regularly at the Gutshot Club in London, and from there became an on-screen reporter for Gutshot TV at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Soon after she became the host of Challenge TV's on-line coverage of the European Poker Tour, also appearing as a reporter for the World Series of Poker Europe on WorldSeriesofPoker.com.

On 21 April 2010, Boeree won the European Poker Tour main event in San Remo, at the time the largest ever poker tournament held on European soil. Boeree won €1,250,000 and thereby became the third woman ever to win an EPT title.

She has shown continuous success on the EPT circuit with twelve Main Event cashes to date. Other notable results include a 2nd place in the 2014 UKIPT Edinburgh Main Event a 3rd place in the EPT Barcelona High Roller event for €391,000 in August 2015.

Boeree has been a member of Team PokerStars Pro since September 2010. Her total live tournament winnings exceed $3,000,000.

In February 2016 she was announced as the Team Manager of the Global Poker League team "The London Royals".

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TRANSCRIPT:

Liv Boeree: When it comes to body language, it's never an exact art. The things I'm going to suggest, they're all guidelines. But that said there are some certain things that as a poker player I'll look for. And the most important thing is, first of all, to get a baseline of somebody. It's impossible to tell whether the behavior someone is showing is meaningful or not if you don't know how they naturally behave. So the first thing I'll do when I sit down at the table is look at what my opponents are doing when they're not in a hand: are they naturally quite gregarious, are they confident when they interact with the waitress, or are they naturally quite quiet and shy? How do they sit? Are they naturally closed off? Are they very languishing”—that kind of thing?

And once I've got an idea of their baseline outside of a hand then I look to see how they deviate from that when they're actually in the middle of playing or in a tense situation. In general what you want to look for in both poker—but also when you're trying to figure out if someone is lying—is their comfort level, if they seem authentic. As a rule of thumb, humans are actually quite good at picking up authenticity or if someone is being disingenuous. So that's the thing to look out for, and there are some like classic behaviors...

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