culture
Poker face.
A poker face is a deliberately blank expression that gives away nothing about what someone is thinking, feeling or holding. Wiktionary puts it as an impassive expression cultivated to stop other players working out whether your actions come from a strong hand or from a bluff, and by extension any expression used to keep your motives to yourself.
That is the whole answer, and for most people who look the phrase up it is the only part they need. The rest of this page is the two things that come after it: where the expression came from, and what a poker face is worth at a table where money is on it.
where it comes from
The phrase comes from the card game, and the reason is structural rather than colourful. Poker is built on the fact that your opponents cannot see your cards, so everything they can see instead is worth money to them. Read the rules of Texas hold em and the whole game turns out to be an argument about information nobody has: who has what, who is willing to pay to find out, and who is prepared to be wrong.
What we deliberately do not print here is a year for the phrase first appearing in English. The dictionary that dates it keeps that entry behind a login we could not read on the day we wrote this, and every other page that repeats the year is repeating that entry without showing it. On a page whose whole job is to answer one question accurately, a borrowed date is a bad trade.
why people look it up
Two of the reasons have nothing to do with cards. The first is a single called Poker Face, released on 23 September 2008 from Lady Gaga's album The Fame, which reached number one in nineteen countries. We name it because it is a large share of why the phrase is searched for at all, and we quote nothing from it: the question people arrive with is what the expression means, not what the song says.
The second is a television series of the same name, created by Rian Johnson and starring Natasha Lyonne, released on Peacock in 2023. It is a crime series rather than a poker one, and the title points at the expression: its lead can tell when somebody is lying. The idea of reading a person is exactly the idea we cover on the page on poker tells, where the honest version turns out to be considerably less cinematic.
what it means at a real table
Four things that the everyday sense of the phrase gets wrong about the game it came from.
It is not a mask you put on
The expression describes the absence of a signal, not the presence of a performance. A face held rigid on purpose is itself a signal, because it appears only when there is something to hide.
Most of what leaks is not on your face
How long you take, how much you bet and in which situations you take those two decisions differently: that is the information that travels furthest, and it travels online as well, where nobody can see you at all.
Online it means something else entirely
At a table without faces the phrase becomes a metaphor. What remains is the same idea underneath: behave the same way whether you are strong or weak, so that your behaviour carries no news.
It says nothing about how well you play
Keeping quiet is worth something only if the decisions underneath it are sound. A perfectly blank face on a losing plan loses at exactly the same speed, just less noisily.
The practical consequence is that a poker face is a by-product of playing consistently rather than a skill of its own. If you always take a similar amount of time and always size your bets by the situation rather than by your hand, there is nothing left for a face to give away. What that consistency looks like street by street is the subject of the lesson on preflop play, and the emotion that breaks it first is covered under tilt in the glossary.
next step
What you can actually read off a player.
Less than films suggest, and something rather different from what people expect. The tells page sets out what is worth watching, what is noise, and why the most reliable reads have nothing to do with anyone's face.
questions about the phrase
What does poker face mean?
A poker face is a deliberately blank expression that gives away nothing about what someone is thinking or feeling. It comes from the card game, where showing nothing about your hand is part of playing it, and it is now used far outside poker for anyone who keeps their reaction off their face.
What does it mean to keep a poker face?
To hold a neutral expression when something happens that would normally show on your face, so that whoever is watching learns nothing from you. In everyday English it is said of people hearing bad news, negotiating, or being told something they will not react to.
Where does the expression come from?
From poker itself. The game is built on the fact that other players cannot see your cards, so anything they can read off you is worth money, and the phrase for showing nothing became the name for the whole behaviour. We deliberately give no year for its first appearance in print on this page, because the dictionary entry that dates it sits behind a login we could not read.
Is the phrase named after the Lady Gaga song?
No, it is the other way round. The expression existed long before the 2008 single, which took an established phrase as its title. The song is, however, a large part of why the phrase is looked up so often.
Does a poker face still matter online?
Not literally, because nobody can see you. What survives is the principle: keep your timing and your bet sizes consistent, so that a quick call and a long one do not mean different things. That is the version of a poker face that actually costs money when you get it wrong.
Can you learn to keep a poker face?
You can learn to behave more consistently, which is the useful half. Trying to control your face while you play adds a second job on top of the decision you are making, and the decision is where the money is. Acting the same way in every situation is easier to keep up than acting a part.
sources
Every date, title and definition on this page comes from one of these, read on 30 August 2026. Anything we could not read at a source we could check is missing on purpose, and the page says where.
- Wiktionary, poker face
The definition this page opens with: an impassive facial expression cultivated to keep other players from telling whether your actions come from a strong hand or from a bluff, and by extension any expression used to hide your motives or feelings.
- Wikipedia, Poker Face (Lady Gaga song)
Where the release facts come from: a single released on 23 September 2008 from the album The Fame, which went to number one in nineteen countries. We name it as a reason people look the phrase up and quote nothing from it.
- Wikipedia, Poker Face (TV series)
The 2023 Peacock crime series created by Rian Johnson and starring Natasha Lyonne. Read to confirm one thing: the title refers to the expression, and poker is not the subject of the programme.
Back to poker culture, or read the Dutch version of this page at pokerface betekenis.