Telltale arms to belie a poker face?

It is inevitable that as expressions change, so must language. Nowhere is this truism likely to become more applicable than in the case of the phrase “poker face”. It signifies inscrutability, which is supposed to be the most important ability of a seasoned player of the eponymous card game. “Keeping cards close to the chest” is another facet of the poker game that has found its way into the English language, alluding to a common method employed to ensure confidentiality. However, if researchers from an American university are correct in deducing that cards can be inadvertently revealed by hitherto unsuspected parts of the anatomy — the arms — the relevance of poker faces in several contexts will be considerably diminished.

Interpreting the act of placing chips with “smooth movements” as a sign of good cards could conceivably fall into the category of “tells” or involuntary habits — often induced by stress or concentration — that give the game away. If, however, this theory is proven true, its relevance could be far wider than the poker table or the addition of another telltale phrase for the English language. For instance, had the study come out a tad sooner, those recently confounded by “pokerfaced Putin” could have concentrated on the Russian president’s arms instead for cues on Syria.