Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
74 used & new from $10.42

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Caro's Book of Poker Tells
 
 
Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.
 
  

Caro's Book of Poker Tells (Paperback)

by Mike Caro (Author) "Once you've mastered the basic elements of a winning poker formula, psychology becomes the key ingredient in separating break-even players from players who win consistently..." (more)
Key Phrases: study section, total pot size, previous tell, Caro's Law of Tells, Weak Means Strong, Poker Charts (more...)
3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (84 customer reviews)

List Price: $24.95
Price: $16.47 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $8.48 (34%)
  Special Offers Available
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Monday, July 20? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
38 new from $13.99 36 used from $10.42

Special Offers and Product Promotions

  • Purchase this entertainment book and get 12 issues to either Rolling Stone, Men's Journal or Us Weekly for $2.95 each. That's less than $0.25 an issue. Here's how (restrictions apply)
  • Explore more great deals on 1000's of titles in our Bargain Book store.


Frequently Bought Together

Caro's Book of Poker Tells + Doyle Brunson's Super System: A Course in Power Poker, 3rd Edition + The Theory of Poker
Price For All Three: $56.01

Show availability and shipping details


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 1: Strategic Play

Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 1: Strategic Play

by Dan Harrington
4.9 out of 5 stars (241)  $19.77
The Theory of Poker

The Theory of Poker

by David Sklansky
4.5 out of 5 stars (115)  $19.77
Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 2: Endgame

Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 2: Endgame

by Dan Harrington
4.9 out of 5 stars (84)  $19.77
Phil Hellmuth Presents Read 'Em and Reap: A Career FBI Agent's Guide to Decoding Poker Tells

Phil Hellmuth Presents Read 'Em and Reap: A Career FBI Agent's Guide to Decoding Poker Tells

by Joe Navarro
4.3 out of 5 stars (55)  $14.78
Every Hand Revealed

Every Hand Revealed

by Gus Hansen
4.6 out of 5 stars (95)  $10.85
Explore similar items


Editorial Reviews

Product Description
One of the ten greatest books written on poker, this must-have book should be in every player's library.  If you're serious about winning, you'll realize that most of the profit comes from being able to read your opponents.  Caro reveals the secrets of interpreting tells - physical reactions that reveal information about a player's cards - such as shrugs, sighs, shaky hands, eye contact, and many more.  Learn when opponents are bluffing, when they aren't and why - based solely on their mannerisms.  Over 170 photos of players in action and play-by-play examples show the actual tells.  These powerful ideas will give you the decisive edge.  320 pages

About the Author
Mike Caro, the "Mad Genius of Poker", is the world's foremost authority on poker strategy, psychology and statistics, and the author of 10 privately sold books and advanced strategies on poker.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Cardoza; illustrated edition edition (March 18, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1580420826
  • ISBN-13: 978-1580420822
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (84 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,066 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

    #8 in  Books > Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Card Games > Poker
    #9 in  Books > Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Gambling

Inside This Book (learn more)



Books on Related Topics (learn more)
 
The Psychology of Poker by Alan N. Schoonmaker
 

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below.
(21)
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search
No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

 

Customer Reviews

84 Reviews
5 star:
 (33)
4 star:
 (25)
3 star:
 (13)
2 star:
 (4)
1 star:
 (9)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (84 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
193 of 211 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Will bring your game to the next level....and beyond, June 30, 2004
I have been playing NL poker online and limit poker in casinos for about two years. My preferred game is single table tournaments and after a year of success online I decided to put my skills to the test. This book really breaks down the art of poker (that is, the ability to read people)into simple categories of tells understandable and recognizeable by anybody. Armed with my technically sound online skills and my newfound ability to understand the motives and intetnions of other live players, I journeyed to Atlantic City to try my first ever live tournament. My first tournament ever...I finished in first place at the Borgata. I played in one more tournament and took 2nd place. It may sound unbelievable, but with a bit of luck and a powerfull arsenal of reads on common poker tells at my disposal, I walked away with over $10,000 on a total investment of $200.

I am not saying that this book will win you the world series, but it will give you a huge edge over your competition. The reason is this: Without a knowledge of tells, you really only win the pots that your cards dictate. Yes, you can play better cards than your opponents and avoid trap hands, but with a knowledge of tells, you can win 2 types of hands. 1) you win the hands your cards dictate. 2) you win the hands that your oponents cards don't merit. If you can pick up weakness in your opponents, you can win pots just by betting or raising at the right moment and salvage a pot where you might have folded. Similarly, you can better identify when your huge hand might be second best. Caro breaks tells down into 2 main categories. Tells from actors, and tells from those who are unaware. The most important are those from Actors. It is Caro's contention that all of us act at the poker table and in life, it is instinctive and largely subconscious. If you can pick up on these signals, discern what the player wants you to do, and then do the opposite, then you can truly, truly dominate the competition. This book is a MUST HAVE for the serious poker player.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Very Useful if Applied Correctly, January 6, 2004
By A Customer
This is the original and still best book on poker tells, but there are others out there that have been published recently that you might be able to get for less. They all offer pretty much the same advice but they got their ideas from this book.

Several things are important when reading a book on tells. You need to know in what games they will help you. They will not help you beat a room full of experts...they know they tells so they won't exhibit them. Caro uses tables for each tell to let you know which ones are important where and this aspect of the book makes it a must-have.

Also you need to know how to look for tells. It is challenging and at times overwhelming to sit at a full table looking for body language. Caro does not cover this "art of observation" well in the book but does on his website: www.poker1.com

I can tell you this book has helped me a LOT at low-medium limits against players who often don't exhibit predictable or correct strategy...such otherwise difficult players to read (but not experienced, well educated players) become more easily beaten when you can spot tells.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Overall, a "good" book - useful, and interesting reading, March 1, 2005
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.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
Ad
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars outdated
It's full of bad black and white photos that look like they were taken in the '70s with players in disco cloths and mustaches, and dealers with big bow ties that looked like they... Read more
Published 26 days ago by M. Richard Roehl

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a must for any poker player
If you understand the basic strategy the game, this book will give you what math and probabilities doesn't explain. Read more
Published 1 month ago by T. Hyppolit

1.0 out of 5 stars 30 pages bound upside down and backwards
this is an obvious tell. I'd rather not own a book that I have to flip over back and forth to read/reference. Read more
Published 1 month ago by John Anderson

5.0 out of 5 stars mike caro poker tells
fantastic book. 2nd hand but fantastic condition, was like new! great book to read. would highly recomend this book to all. :)
Published 2 months ago by Simon Geisler

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
I would give this book a 4.5 it's the first book i read on tells but it's a good book with a lot of information. Buy it if you play home poker games.
Published 2 months ago by Michal Wybraniec

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book about tells, but still not sure you can learn reading tells from a book
I love the dynamic that tells add to poker. I often play online now, and seldom make into an actual poker room, but when I do get the chance I really enjoy working reading tells... Read more
Published 2 months ago by thedizz

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful book for an intermediate poker player
excellent book - covers the basics, but is so powerful that a quick browse of two pages before i went to play a cash game earnt me about $400... Read more
Published 6 months ago by J. Zhang

1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of money
I should have listened to the other poor reviews and saved my money. This book takes about ten worthwhile (and very obvious) tells, spends a few pages on each explaining what... Read more
Published 10 months ago by D

1.0 out of 5 stars Buy the video.
I purchased Mike Caro's VIDEO on tells years ago. (I bought the VHS but, of course, it's on DVD now.) It is an updated version of the book and it is excellent. Read more
Published 10 months ago by K.C.

5.0 out of 5 stars Tells = Bigger Bankroll
Old and dated but still very relevant. Perfect quick read if you are in transition from internet to live games. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Jason Tucker

Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.
This product's forum (0 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
  No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


Active discussions in related forums
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
How about a texas stock exchange? 0 7 days ago
   


Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)



Look for Similar Items by Category


Value Center Deals

Home Improvement Value Center
Let spectacular savings of up to 50% in the Home Improvement Value Center help motivate you to organize the closet, garage, and everything else.

Shop the Value Center

 

Best Books of 2008

Best of 2008
Find our top 100 editors' picks as well as customers' favorites in dozens of categories in our Best Books of 2008 Store.
 

Buy Three Books, Get a Fourth Free

4-for-3 Books
Order any four eligible books under $10 and get the lowest-price book free in our 4-for-3 Books Store. See more details.
 

Best Books

Best of the Month
See our editors' picks and more of the best new books on our Best of the Month page.
 
Ad

 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Where's My Stuff?

Shipping & Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.

Continue shopping: Top Sellers
Free
Free by Chris Anderson
Paranoia
Paranoia by Joseph Finder
My Soul to Lose
My Soul to Lose by Rachel Vincent
Glenn Beck's Common Sense

Conditions of Use | Privacy Notice © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates