Review of Caro's Book of Poker Tells

Title:

Caro's Book of Poker Tells

Author:

Mike Caro

Publisher:

Cardoza Publishing

Date:

2003

ISBN:

1-58042-082-6

Pages:

320

Price:

$24.95

Reviewed by Nick Christenson, npc@lvrevealed.com

January 31, 2004

Cardoza publishing has recently reprinted another poker classic, Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells. Few poker books have been as widely read as this one, in it's third major revision since it's original publication by Gambling Times, Inc.. I own a copy of one of the printings of the Gambling Times edition and the Cardoza edition. Besides reviewing the book, I can compare these two versions of this material. In between the release of these was an edition published by the Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy which I don't own.

Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells begins with introductory material that explains what this book is about, an explanation of the nomenclature used, an explanation of the author's MCU Poker Charts, and a prologue about "Caro's Law of Loose Wiring". These last two weren't present in the Gambling Times edition. The introduction sets up the book well. The reader receives a good idea of the direction in which this book is headed.

The next four sections cover various situations where players might exhibit "tells". That is, players give away information about the strength of their hands via their actions. These sections are titled, "Tells From Those Who Are Unaware", "Tells From Actors", "Some General Tells", and "The Sounds of Tells". Each tell is discussed separately. Each explanation includes one or more photographs depicting the behavior in question, a categorization of the tell, an explanation of what it means, a discussion of what motivates this behavior, an estimate of the tell's reliability, and an estimate of its value to an alert player. The tells the author discusses have not changed since the original edition, except that the pictures are a little smaller and most of the attire and hair styles of the actors exhibiting the tells have been abandoned.

Two criticisms I have of this book are that I don't believe the tell reliability percentages are accurate, and I don't think the value per hour of each tell is realistic. Of course, a great number of poker players have read this book, and it has undoubtedly influenced the way people play. Nonetheless, the reliability numbers are probably still somewhat worthwhile if they are considered in relative terms. That is, in the absence of other information it may be reasonable to assume that a tell that Caro assigns a 97% reliability factor is more reliable than one that has been assigned a 60% reliability factor. Still, this information must be compiled on a player-by-player basis. Frankly, I can't figure out how the value per hour statistics were generated, and my advice would be to ignore these numbers altogether.

The book wraps things up with a some summary information, a quiz on the material the book covers, and some final thoughts by the author. The overall flow to the book is well thought out, and the material is presented in a clear and logical manner. Sometimes it is not immediately obvious what behavior is on display in a given picture, but this can be very hard to capture well in still photography. Even in those cases where the photograph can be hard to decipher, the text accompanying the picture is usually sufficient to understand what the author has in mind.

Despite some minor flaws and the age of the book (20 years as of this review), Caro's Book of Poker Tells is still one of the most important poker books ever written, and it's great that this book is still in print. While this book will certainly be more relevant to live players than it will to the online game, its principles are timeless and are likely to be of benefit for any alert poker player in any poker game. There are multiple poker books available on every aspect of poker except for tells. One reason for this is because there is still little room for improvement on Caro's landmark work. Largely as a consequence of this, too little has been changed or added to make it necessary for someone who owns the original edition of this book to need to upgrade. However, no poker library would be complete without a copy of this book.

Capsule:

Although I don't believe that every bit of information in this book is important or even useful, this is one of the absolute classics of poker scholarship, and every serious poker player should read and study its contents. Even though the game may have changed in the last 20 years, the contents of Caro's Book of Poker Tells is still entirely relevant. Over this time period, the book itself hasn't changed much, so folks who have the original edition do not need to buy a new one.

Note: I received a free review copy of the most recent edition of this book from the publishers. I have no other interest, financial or otherwise, in the success of this book.