Phil Hellmuth Presents Read PB

I bought this book just before a trip I took to vegas last month and it paid for itself many times over. If you learn nothing from the book other than how to conceal your own tells you will come out a winner. For those of you who think they have no tells, believe me, you do. Joe Navaro was able to spot tells in players as difficult to read as chris fergusson. I've read tons of poker books and this by far is second only in terms of importance to 'Theory of Poker'. And the only reason I put it second is because without a basic understanding of the game nothing else matters. But for those of you who know poker this book will teach you how to pick up on the body language and such of your opponents. Oh yeah. About my vegas trip. I would say this book accounted for about $1,000 of my winnings that weekend (Playing 1-3 NL). In several situations I was able to pick up tells that allowed me to make calls I normally wouldnt have and also to make plays with nothing based primarily on this book. Good luck!

This is a fascinating book, with lots of photos of expressions, gestures and behaviours that give away the strength of a hand or the intent to raise or fold. At one point, I caught myself doing at tell just as I was reading about it! There is an amazing story where Phil Hellmuth made an astounding fold because he saw his opponent's eyes dilate when the turn card hit and knew it helped him. And beyond just recognizing tells, Joe Navarro, a long time FBI behavioural analyst, explains the psychology behind them and why it's so hard to hide all tells. Then he gives his own strategies for minimizing your own tells, while picking up more on others. I'd hate to be across a poker table from either of these two!

This is without a doubt a very eye opening look into the psychology of poker and deciphering poker tells. The results for me after reading this book was almost instantaneous. After reading this book, I finished 3rd in a monthly poker league event where I had been knocked out early in two prior events. The book has allowed me to make some great laydowns and a couple of great calls based on the information I read in the book. But let me say to new players that this success comes with a warning. Poker tells and being able to spot them are only a portion of what you need to be successful in the game. Poker tells are only a part of the story that will need to help you make a correct decision in a hand. Your cards, the flop, other players, poker math, position, betting patterns, and the tells described in this book ALL should be factored in to the decision that a player makes at the table. The very valuable things that a player will learn from this book are not the only things needed to win. Navarro makes a very important point in saying that after a long day at the tables, a player should be mentally exhausted. And if you are paying attention to all of the above, Navarro is 100% accurate. This book will add a key weapon to a players arsenal. It is a good and easy read. The illustrations help to highlight what to look for and when to look for it. The information in this book has the potential to make a player go from break even to a plus player. This book contains that edge. For instance, Navarro asks in his book, "What is the most honest part of the body (when looking for a tell)?" My guess was way off. And I was surprised at the answer. While I absolutely respect Phil Hellmuth's game, he really earns the title of Poker Brat in this book. His parts in the book really amount to grandstanding about some of the great hands he has played throughout his career. And he will be sure to remind you that these hands were played during the biggest tournaments in the world. If you have followed Hellmuth, it's acutally pretty funny to read his passages because you know how important it is for him to remind people that he is Phil Hellmuth, World Champion. I honestly think that this is a book for players with at least some experience. Complete beginners should not worry themselves with this book right away because there are far more important things about the game that need to be learned first. For the experienced players this book contains the information that could help take you to the next level. This book will help you complete the story of each hand and make the correct decision. It has worked well for me so far. So in conclusion, don't buy this book. In fact, I am going to take the money I make after having read this book, buy every copy available and burn them. I really don't want to run into anyone on the table who has read this book. Seriously, great book Mr. Navarro.

Navarro knows the subject of nonverbal behaviors (tells) very well. It has been his job to know what the other guy was going to do or what he is trying to hide for over 25 years. He knows all the tells and why we exhibit these tells. He gives you all this information in the book and even how to hide your own tells--well, at least conceal them enough to save you money. He covers all the tells you will need to know from the face to the toes. The pictures in the book clearly demonstrate each of the tells discussed, which was very useful. Whether you like Hellmuth or not, he adds his 2 cents at the end of some of the chapters. These are actually not too bad and it's only a brief page or two comment, so nothing to worry about for those who don't like the poker brat. The best parts of the book are his recommendations for hiding your own tells at the table and also detecting when people are trying to give off false tells. He also covers all the bases that might get a new person from making mistakes, like looking for stress type tells at a small limit game or confusing regular behaviors for revealing tells. Overall, I enjoyed the book. I don't play a lot of live poker, but I thought I would enjoy the information coming from a former F.B.I. agent--I was correct, I did. Joe Navarro did an excellent job of introducing the reader to tells and explaining how the brain, along with our primal survival instincts, leads to these revealing nonverbal behaviors. The information can probably be taken off the poker tables and used in your daily life as well. It's never a bad thing to know when someone is hiding something or trying to be deceptive.

I just finished a first pass through _Read 'Em and Reap_. I'm sure I could write a better review after a few sessions of live play trying to use what I have learned, but I can always edit this one in the light of any significant results[1]. Too many books of this general type are fluffed up with a lot of rhetoric about why we should care about the subject; there's only a little of that here, before the author dives right in. Navarro provides a good catalog of unconscious tells to look for, hints on how to distinguish those from acting, and a good method for sealing yourself off from broadcasting tells (hint: watch Hoyt Corkins play). I was pleased to see that he discusses how to put tells in context and doesn't exaggerate their importance. There isn't going to be a magic bullet in this field, as people vary in their responses, not to mention acting ability and the curious phenomenon of unconscious acting. I was once in a hand with two players ahead of me, where I had picked up a pair of 9s with my 97 (No snide comments allowed: The Persian Carpet Ride is my favorite trash hand, and you have one, too.) The two other players were competing to see who could lean over the pot the furthest; I had not seen anyone at the table completely lose it like this before or since. Caro would say they were weak but acting strong; Navarro would say they were strong unless you could be sure they were acting. With a bet and a call ahead of me, I'd love to be able to say I correctly diagnosed what they were doing, which was trying to make something happen with a couple of mediocre overcard hands, and raised them back into their chairs. I didn't, though; since I couldn't decide which way they were leaning, so to speak, I got out of the way with my middling pair. I wouldn't do that today. I'm thinking that Navarro is absolutely right that spotting a subtle initial reaction is much better than trying to figure out what something dramatic like that really means. Navarro carefully points out that stress-based tells are not going to be prominent in low-stakes games. I'm glad of that warning, as my current live game is fairly inexpensive and populated mostly by people who have reasonable poker faces. This means I face a real challenge in tell-spotting. The book is lightly sprinkled with Phil Hellmuth's anecdotes, but don't let that keep you from buying it. A couple of them are new, relevant, and actually pretty funny. I'm absolutely disgusted to see this book at #146 in sales; that means I have to completely memorize the material on minimizing my own tells, as I cannot assume that most people have not read this book. I got in on the poker boom late, and now this. Darn! 1. Ha! I now have major tells on two of the regulars in my local game, and that doesn't count the others who are always going to fold or always going to call a big bet, so I know what and how to play against them even if they were invisible. So Navarro has helped; now if he just had a cure for the one