virtual worlds (1): lessons from poker

I'm a bit wary about virtual worlds. Over the festive season, I spent a few hours playing online poker and it reminded me that: (a) I'm not a very good poker player & (b) You don't necessarily want a faithful reproduction of the real world in cyberspace.

Lets focus on issue (b) for now. When you play online, you get a little avatar (in my case, a hillbilly with a plaid shirt and a trucker's cap). However my avatar did not exhibit any shaking, sweating or indeed any behaviour to find him in Mike Caro's book of poker tells. And that suited me just fine. The basic transfer of information in poker is through betting - the amount bet and the speed with which that bet is placed..

Would I want an avatar that gave too much away?

The other point to make is that while online poker is conceptually the same as playing in room full of sweating card sharks, they are different experiences. Not least in the "tells" department.