In the world of poker, appearances can often mean the difference between a winning hand and a losing hand. When bluffing, some people attempt to appear supremely confident to offset the fact that their hands are junk. This has the effect of discouraging other players from challenging you for ownership of the pot. However, there are others that prefer to use fear and anxiety as their weapons, coldly intimidating their fellow players into abandoning their positions of strength. There is a deep element of psychology whenever someone bluffs at the poker table. There can sometimes be an even deeper element of fear and anxiety behind the bluff, both for the one doing the bluffing and for those being targeted.
Some people claim they can practically smell the anxiety coming off someone who has gotten suckered into a good bluff. For some players, fear and anxiety are ideal tools in bluffing, as it plays upon some of the oldest instincts in the human psyche. When gripped by anxiety, people tend to lose their ability to objectively and clearly evaluate a situation and make good decisions. As any poker professional will tell you, the inability to analyze the situation before you is...