Book Details:
Caro's Book of Poker Tells - Pub. Date: March 2003; ISBN-13: 9781580420822; 320 pages

Power Poker Course’s Book Review:

It's a little disconcerting to look back at this book, Caro's Book of Poker Tells, and try to give it my honest opinion. The reason it's a bit troubling is because although this book is considered a classic testament to the psychology of poker players everywhere, I find myself disagreeing with some of what I read.

The simple truth is that this book is somewhat outdated, and in some cases, dangerously inaccurate. For instance, there's a small discussion on "instant reactions" about halfway through the book. To put it simply, Caro points out that an instant reaction means genuineness - an instant check means genuine weakness while an instant bet equals genuine strength. After playing online poker for almost ten years - a medium in which timing is one of the few tells one has to go on - I can say for certain that a player's actions just can't be grouped into such simple blocks anymore.

In truth, to me, all an instant reaction means is that a player already knew what he was going to do. While it's true that many players need a moment to think before bluffing - or when they've suddenly improved their hand - there are plenty of people able to map out their possible actions ahead of time, and they are therefore ready to act when the time comes, regardless of sudden or new information.

That was just one example, but the main point here is that so many people have read this book, and many of them try to trick their opponents by doing the opposite of what it says. Paying close attention and remembering your opponent's tendencies are really the only way to determine the strength of their hand. Everybody has their own unique patterns - it's dangerous to assume everybody reacts the same way to the same situation.

That being said, this book is still worth checking out. You can't take too much of it on faith, but a lot of the material still involves valid psychological discussion of why people behave the way they do. It's been a long time since this book was written, and a lot has changed since then; one of the biggest things that has changed is the simple fact that a lot of players have read this book. For that reason alone it should be read by any serious player; in order to understand your opponents, you must tread where they have trodden.

For those who play primarily live games, then this book would contain more substance, since it was written by a man who has picked up his knowledge of the tells he discusses by playing the live game. This book came out at the time when the online game started to boom, before it has evolved to where it is at the present day. That being said, as all information learnt can be useful information at some point and considering that this is one of the poker book "classics", it's still valuable reading if you want to delve more into the psychology and body language in poker.


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