Caro's Book of Poker Tells by Mike Caro
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Book Reviews of Caro's Book of Poker Tells
Book Review: Worth it
Summary: 5 Stars
Bought as a gift, person loved it. Said it vastly improved their game, both online and off.Book Review: This book is wonderful
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this book for my boyfriend. He said it was everything he thought it would beBook Review: excellent book
Summary: 5 Stars
Just a great book - a classic. Must read for all players at all skill levels.Book Review: Overall, a "good" book - useful, and interesting reading
Summary: 4 Stars
A classic, and one of the most well known books on poker, it's been published again and again under different publishers with very slight changes over the years.
It's one of the only books on tells, or body language in poker - a bit surprising, considering the hundreds of poker books in print, and the popular conception that tells are a huge part of the game.
Caro, also known as "the Mad Genius of Poker," is a top-level poker player, credited as the best draw player in the world. Or was, at least - draw poker all but died out when other forms became legal in California, and he hasn't been heard from as much since then. Regardless, he's still extremely smart, a great teacher, and is always entertaining reading.
The book covers around fifty different "tells," of various types. Some are general profiling, such as what you can infer about an unfamiliar opponent's style by the way they dress or stack their chips. Most are behavioral - what it means when someone acts immediately, without pausing to think, when someone glances down at their chips after the flop, when they "splash" chips into the pot instead of stacking them, etc. A common theme is that "strong means weak" and "weak means strong" - when they sigh and shrug their shoulders as they raise, get out. It seems so basic, but often holds true even at relatively high levels. There are logical tells too, like when a conservative player bets without looking at his last card in stud, he already has a made hand.
One tell I've found very useful is when a player's hand starts to shake uncontrollably as he or she bets on the last round. Most people's initial thought would be that they're nervous and bluffing. In reality, it usually means they have a nearly unbeatable hand. The shaking is a release of tension; a natural, involuntary response as the nervous uncertainty of the hand's outcome is resolved. The shaking is most likely to occur when the stakes are very meaningful to the player. Sometimes this one is visible even on the WPT or WSOP coverage on TV. Even those who play for thousands every day can't control their reactions when they're suddenly playing for millions.
On the downside, the book's age shows. The pictures are grainy and black-and-white, and highlight fashion trends of the 1980s. Several of the tells are specific to draw poker, like determining whether a player who draws one has two pair or a four-flush; not very useful anymore, but still interesting.
For each tell, the text estimates how many weak, average, and strong players will exhibit the specific behavior, and gives a value for how much you can gain by understanding it and being observant. These are useful as generalizations, such as which will rarely apply in a higher limit game against more experienced players, but the "value per hour" figures are crazy. At the $100 limit, various tells are supposedly worth $11/hour, $96, $43, $128, etc. If that were true, a break-even player who studied this book would suddenly be making thousands per hour.
Reading people's body language isn't nearly that big a part of poker. Most decisions at the table are fairly clear based on the cards and logic. Only in borderline situations do tells become valuable, and even then, you have to be pretty sure your read is accurate; if you fold the best hand on the end based on a read you thought was accurate, when you would have called otherwise, you've just cost yourself the whole pot.
Lots of people have bought this book, or similar material, with the idea of studying it and suddenly making a killing, with no more than a basic understanding of poker. This is misguided, and probably not possible. Technical skill and a solid understanding of poker theory and game situations are far more important. Reading people is a useful and interesting supplement to that, not a replacement for playing well.
That said, I'd recommend this book to anyone. Even casual, kitchen table players will find it readable, interesting, and useful - maybe more so than more experienced players since their opponents will have a lot of obvious tells to be read.
Book Review: Helped me transition from online play
Summary: 4 Stars
I have been playing NL Texas Holdem online for about a year, and doing very well. I also play weekly with a pretty regular group of about 15 players. About 4 months ago I went to Atlantic City and played in two tournaments, finishing in the middle of the pack in each - not at all what I was expecting. At one point, I was heads up with one player and wanting his call. He looked at me, folded, and said, "Can I have my canary back now?", referring to the excited grin on my face. He put me on a hand.
So on a recommendation from a friend, I read this book. It really makes you aware of the other players at the table, as well as aware of your 'self' at the poker table. Some of the stuff in this book is complete (...) - for instance, the 'percentage of effectiveness of a tell' is not useful. This prevented this book from getting 5 stars. But the material this is in this book about watching other players, sizing up their 'awareness' and so on, is dead accurate. This is not a 'poker book' in the sense that it tells you what hands to play and how to play them - it tells you how to read other players for their 'strength'.
I cannot argue with the results. I was in Vegas last week, and I played in 2 tournaments at MGM Grand. I finished 1st in one, winning $1800, and 5th in another, winning $379. I found myself mentally referring to the material in this book - "Is that player self-aware of his playing?", "How did the player's face react to the flop?", "Did that player look at my chips or his chips before he bet?" and so on. Nothing much changed between my Atlantic City and my Vegas trips, except the fact that I read this book (As well as Harrington on Holdem), and had some time to practice that material in my circle of friends.
Buy this book and take your play to the next level.