There is a big step from reading a book to applying it to your game, and many people that gave this book a bad rating were instantly expecting to see 100 tells from every opponent on every hand. Tells are rarely obvious and it takes concentration to find them. This book taught everything from card motions to body movements, and it all works. The same weekend after I finished reading this book, I was in a very large no-limit hold'em hand that came down to fifth street. I had a very weak hand and was prepared to throw my hand away to any large bet made. The person across the table did just that, trying to present a strong hand. There was an easy straight, and an easy flush (four consecutive cards on the board and 4 cards of the same suit) on the table. I watched him closely to see if I could spot any tells and I instantly saw 2 of the more subtle tells that Caro addresses in this book. I instantly called his bet and he showed only ace high and I took down the pot. I can honestly say that if I had never read this book, I would have folded that hand and lost quite a large amount of chips. This book has helped me many times in making the right calls in the most important situations. Anyone should read this book, the pictures seem pretty outdated but they do a good job of giving examples. Read this book, it will teach you a lot.

This book is useless. First off tells don't tell what cards your playing against. somebody could have A-A and act weak to lure you into playing the hand. I've read this book and did not think it improved my game at all. Watch the 2005 WPT poker by the book tournament where its all famous authors/poker greats. doyle brunson,david sklansky,phill hellmuth,tj clouter and mike caro who not only acts retarded in trying to annoy everyone to give up tells was the first one to get elimanated. Is a lousy poker player in my opition. Poker is odds,math and guts and more logic then this tell crap. Pick up supersystem by brunson or phill gordons little green book. Better yet any sklansky book will teach you how to play poker considering he sat back quietly at the above mentioned tournament and won the whole thing even beating doyle brunson himself heads up.

"Caro's Book of Poker Tells" is unique in that it focuses on the complex and imprecise science of reading other poker players' tells.

The book is structured into types of poker tells and has easy to digest examples of the individual tells. The analysis is well thought-out and still current even though the original edition was published some years ago. Just watch your opponents after reading this book and you will immediately recognize many of the tells described in this book!

There are, however, a few deficiencies to note, including dated photographs and slightly blurry reproductions of the photos that makes some tell examples a little harder to see. The writing style is also a little scattered, but if you've read any columns or other works by Mike Caro you will recognize it as his work immediately. Finally, some of the pictures that go along with the tells appear slightly after the text that refer to them. This is not a major problem but can be confusing at first since you will typically have to look ahead to the photograph then back to the text as a tell is explained. These minor issues are the only reason I rate this book as four stars instead of five.

You will be hard pressed to find any other works solely on the topic of poker tells, and some of the best poker books ever published make reference to this milestone work.

many people have already read it, so it is fairly useless when playing against them.

Besides being somewhat offended by the racial stereotyping of how various races play poker, I just wish that the author would have backed up his theories with some science or other quantative data. It's as though he assumes that we'll just take his word for these things...and while in can't be argued that he's garnered a fair amount of acclaim in the field for this book (and most people consider his 'tells' to be quite accurate), I think he should at the very least tell us where he's coming up with his theories.