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

• #15 in Best Poker Books

60 Reviews

Sort by: Most Helpful ▲ Date Rating

This book is very good. It does a very good job of laying the groundwork for the psychology and physiology behind tells. It explains the body's natural tendency to react to various situations as a function of the biology of the brain and thousands of years of evolution. It also takes the reader through several learning excercises that will help increase awareness of important things to observe and additionally help the reader to be less "readable" himself. Additionally, it is well organized and well written.

I have read and re-read every tell book on the market and dozens of poker books. I find it interesting that so many "experts" can not agree on the value of tells. In John Feeney's "Inside the Poker Mind" he minimizes the value of tells quite a bit. In the tells section of "Super System 2" Mike Caro suggests that you "might easily double your income" by developing your skills. In this book the authors suggest that winning poker is 70% reading players and only 30% reading the cards("understanding the mathematical and technical aspects") They do tell you that their 70/30 equation is geared towards larger buy-in no limit tournaments but the overall presentation suggests that this 70/30 is a general guide to poker.

Personally, I think they may all be somewhat correct! Let me explain. Feeney plays(played) mostly middle and upper limit holdem and stud where the players are more advanced and rely on their technical prowess and aggression to hold an edge. In the lower limit games there are so many available tells that Caro might not be far off in his assertion. Navarro and Hellmuth address primarily no limit holdem tournaments as far as the specific examples from Hellmuth's poker career. Why is this important? Because elimination no limit events may put the most pressure on the other players and the time allotted to making decisions is significantly longer than in limit cash games. So a player of Hellmuth's caliber, given extended time to study opponents may in fact have an enormous edge in reading players-approaching his theoretical 70% number. And this is why I rate the book a 4 instead of a 5; the average player or players playing mostly limit cash games versus no limit tournaments will not be operating under the same set of circumstances as Hellmuth does in his mostly no limit tournament environment. And taken out of context* the value of tells is highly debateable. I feel they under emphasize this critical explanation in their book and may have oversold the value of tells for many lesser experienced players. Don't misunderstand-the book is very good but you need to be a fundamentally good poker player to extract additional profit from developing tells skills and using your skills to exploit your opponents. By all means buy the book but keep things in perspective.

*This is not the same "context" the other reviewer is speaking of. He is speaking of the context of the tell itself where I am referring to the value of tells as they relate to the specific poker environment or situation(ie cash or no limit tournament)

Post Script Nov 16, 2007: I have just finished re-reading this book for the third time and if the edit portion would allow it I would change my rating to a five. After reading it again I not only overlooked some great information on my first two readings but after reading it I watched a couple of episodes of High Stakes Poker and spotted numerous tells from big name pros that I had not even been aware of enough to look for; I spotted tells from Sammy Farha, Paul Wasicka and Patrick Antonius to name just a few. Wow. A casual reading did not give me that awareness but studying the book did. There is definitely a lot to learn if you will put in some time. This book is a must have if you take your game seriously at all. If you can spot tells in seasoned professionals I am confident you can find lots of tells in your regular games.

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 guy who gets lucky every time no matter how badly he's beat when the money goes in ...

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.

This book is pretty bad. It has a few useful tidbits of info if you are willing to wade through pages and pages of filler material. I strongly suggest anyone considering purchase go to a bookstore and examine the book first. Here are some things you will find:

1. Look at the print - it's practically double-spaced.

2. It's filled with unnecessary full-page photos. For example, look at page 168, where a full-page photo shows what whistling looks like.

3. It reuses photos. Look at pages 34 and 87. Notice anything? Entire page taken up with exactly the same photos. The captions are slightly different, but basically say the same thing.

4. It reuses content. Everything is repeated over and over and over again. There are countless examples of this throughout the book.

5. The writing is very long-winded. Open to any random page and read a few lines and you'll see what I mean. Here's an example: pages 133 to 137 describe a single tell called a tongue-jut, including a full-page photo to show what it looks like. Here's what those 5 pages say: if a player flicks his tongue between his teeth for a second, he feels like he got away with something. That's it. 5 pages.

6. The Phil Hellmuth anecdotes are self-promoting, uninteresting and basically useless to the reader. Is anyone surprised by this? To see what I mean, flip through the book and read any section with a gray background. For example, on page 137, Phil begins a 3-page story about how great he was at reading Howard Lederer in a certain hand.

And so on...

The cover of the book tells us that Joe Navarro wrote the book with Marvin Karlins, but it's presented by Phil Hellmuth. What this means is: Joe wrote up everything he could think of and only came out with about 10 pages of actual content. They hired Marvin to spread that out to a full book, but still came up short. So they added Phil Hellmuth to give his endorsement and write a bunch of anecdotes to stretch the story even more. Finally, they threw in a bunch of photos to get up to about 200 pages, still a minimal length for a reference book on poker.

Don't take my word on this - go to a bookstore and look for yourself.

p.s. I'm not a huge fan of Mike Caro's book either. It's just so old. There definitely is a need for a modern, well-written book about poker tells. Anyone have any ideas?

First, let me say that I wouldn't give a great poker book a good review because I don't want to have somebody I'm playing against getting smarter by reading it. But, having been a dumb donkey for buying this book, I'm disgusted enough to tell others that it is such a worthless ripoff of Mike Caro's classic BOOK OF TELLS that it is a shame it was printed. More shameful is that I bought it. Page after page, the author praises his powers of observation and his expensive seminars. He promises that reading his book and, yes, attending his seminars, will make you a great pro. Much of this self-hype sounds like a used-car salesman talking about the beauty he's going to sell you if you act today.

All the photos are ridiculous, but even funnier is the section about feet. Sure, if somebody is sitting right next to you, I guess you can see if they have their feet wrapped around their chair legs, but players who sit for hours and hours tend to do all kinds of things with their feet and legs that have nothing to do with the hand they are in. When somebody first arrives at a table, for instance, they are often fresh and a little excited, so they will have their feet "ready for action." But after just a little while, we relax and just try to keep our knees from locking up and our toes from going numb. You can look at my feet under the table all you want--if it helps you read me, great!

The biggest laughs are in the section about how to hide your own tells: Act like a robot, wear a hat and sunglasses, and cover your mouth and nose with your hands. Hey, who said poker was supposed to be fun?

Mr. Helmuth contributes a few stories from tourneys in which he made mind-boggling lay-downs or bluffs based on somebody biting a lip or looking scared. Otherwise, this mess belongs entirely to Mr. Navarro.

I gave this a second star for the introduction in which the author does make a good, strong case for developing observation powers away from the table and not only while in the heat of battle. (See, I am trying to be fair!) But that is only about seven pages, not enough to shell out the bucks for.

If you do decide to get this book, keep it a secret, because any decent, experienced poker player who knows you bought it will laugh at you until you cry.

A final note: I have noticed that poker books stand out as being dog-piled praised by everybody the author ever sat next to at a table. What a back-slapping, good-old-boy club they have going for most of the books. Fortunately, all the false praise makes it very difficult for readers to know which ones can really help their game!

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!

I am mainly a internet player, but have played at very prestigious card rooms to the likes of the Bike in LA, and commerce. Usually NL 300 to 500 and up. I read this book expecting maybe more than i should have. I can sum the entire book up by saying simply "pay attention". Nothing really ground breaking at all here. It was a quick read, so i rated it a bit higher than i thought the content was good. Mike Caro's book i find, although outdated, is more packed with information. How the hell am i supposed to make a desicion on a big hand based on something i cant see. Like the over emphasized feet section of the book. Im sure this stuff will help a bit, but it should be used as a basic beginner tool. I thought with this guys qualifications there would be more. I was wrong. Just dont expect to hit the tables and crack the code, cuz u will be the one getting cracked.

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.

After getting this (I am a Hellmuth fanactic) upon its release, I read it in like 20 mintues, as I consume poker literature at an incredible speed, during a point at which I was going to the card room twice a week, this book helped me identify these clear indications of someones emotions, as in how comfortable, how stressed, etc. This really only works I'd imagine at really low limits, b/c part of getting to that next level is making sure that you dont do this stuff. But even pros and people at final tables do things that a reader of this text could pick off. Par ex: Matusow on HSP S3 would literally stop talking mid-sentance if he picked up a big hand or hit a flop.
My favorite read that I picked up myself was at a 1/2NLHE home game that runs with some local businessmen. I called a guy with second pair in a huge pot, after he'd check min-raised the flop, which he had done with a set a couple orbits before (I flat called at this point) the turn was a brick, and he put me in. The dude was totally hugging himself (you'll see)and had his feet giving the weak tell. I was able to pick up 300 in this spot thanks to the book, rather than relying on betting patterns or just evaluating the strength of my own hand (JT on a AJ64 board) Dude had 76o...THis books won me more big pots than I can count. Now if I can keep my bluffing % under 50% (75 while drunk) I'll be ok :)

The good:
This book is quite well written. Unlike most poker books, there is little jargon, which would make it quite valuable for a beginner. Navarro's ideas are laid out in a very clear manner. As other reviewers have stated, Navarro's insights are great and will help your poker game (as it has helped mine.)

The bad:
It may just have been my expectations, but I was hoping for some activities designed to put the observation techniques into practice. I also would have liked to have seen some clearer poker situations, like in Dan Harrington's books. The visual examples provided in this book are all pictures of Navarro (except for a few of a woman to point out some gender specific tells.) The only problem with this if we are to put this information into practice, we need to be used to looking for them on different people.

None of my problems with this book outweigh the positives. I would like to see Navarro come out with a companion DVD. This is a must-read, and goes well with Caro's Book of Tells.

So I've read about this book being called out for not having enough content and having too many photos and repetitive information. This is absolutely right, and would be a complete condemnation of this book...if this was a book about pot odds, or Harrington's M value. But it's not, it's a book about tells. I would challenge anyone to try to write a book about body language with just text. It can't be done. To be honest, this probably shouldn't even be a book. It should be a video where Phil and Joe just sit in front of a screen and point out other players' tells. It would be even better/more entertaining if they tried to read what people had as you saw their actual hands. Think about it, you'd get to watch experts call each other's tells, and you would be able test the accuracy of Hellmuth's god-given ability to read people. Brilliant. If someone doesn't do this within the next year, I'm pitching it to the Brat.

This is just the long way of saying that the book has good value if you're really looking to learn tells. But it does beg the question, how important are tells in actual play? Well, if you play online, not at all, obv. But if you decide to actually enter a poker room and play the game face to face, it's fun to think that learning to read tells could help establish you as a winning player.

This is where I have an issue with the idea of the book. And it has nothing to do with the quality of this particular book--after all, I'm giving it 4 stars. It's just that tells aren't that important. There are so many other (and more accurate) ways to figure out what a player is holding based upon their actual tendencies and playing histories. Plus, people get into the mindset that somehow reading someone is going to give you the right play. Well, as you know from reading Sklansky's Theory of Poker (I assume you have), even if you had the ability to see everyone's hands, it still takes a lot of knowledge and skill to know what to do with that information, such as knowing when, even if the percentages aren't in your favor, the pot odds make a call worth it. Too many people think that poker is about reading tells, and books like this, even if they are well put together as this one is, just perpetuates that mistake.

This is kind of a basic book of tells, many of which don't really apply to poker at all, unless you can actually see someone's pupils dilating from across the table, or someone's feet under the table. If you have those kind of superhuman abilities, you should really focus your energies on bigger and better things than poker, perhaps Mid-East peace negotiations. I'll say this much; the three biggest tells that consistently pay me off the most aren't even mentioned in the book. Overall an interesting and amuseing book, just not applicable much to the game.

I have read both this book and Caro's book on tells. I have to say that I feel this book is much more informative. Sitting down at the poker table, I was immediately able to pick up subtle tells from the other players.

I just finished playing my brother in a 2 dollar heads up match. I looked at my hole cards and had J 3 off suite. My brother and I checked pre-flop. The flop came K 8 Q two spades. He raised 10 cents and I re-raised him 40. He asked me how much I had and I replied $1.35. He raised all in. I took my sunglasses off and glared at him. Because of this book, I noticed a couple tells on him. 1. His pupils enlarged (showing a bluff). 2. His feet weren't shaking, (a sighn that he dosn't have a solid hand). 3. He looked me straight in the eye the whole time (another sighn of a bluff). It took me a minuet to figure this out, and I immediatly called. He had 9 5 off suit. On the river came a deppressing 5. He won 4 dollars that night, but now I'm not as oblivious to tells then before I read this book. So thanks Joe. Your book was a fun read. It brought me more aware to tells than ever before. If you are an aspiring poker player this is a must have.

Mike Caro's book was revolutionary since it was the first book that categorized all the tells from the poker table. I believe everybody should read Caro's book first if you want to learn about tells, but this books teaches you on how to continue learning how to read tells.

Joe Navarro talks a lot about standard position, this is how people are in their normal state. You have to be observant on how people look like when they aren't under any pressure or stress. Base on this knowledge you will then start trying to read this person on tells. In the end of the book Navarro teaches you how to improve your observation skills with some exercises.
Some reviews says that this is just a copy of Caro's book. I don't believe that's true, you will find information here that you can't find in Caro's book.

I picked this up and read it the other day. The only thing I have to say is notice half way through the book when he is standing up to look at the turn card and is holding AK and his opponent is holding QQ he stands up in in excitement when the turn card is a K. The Flop was KQx. They dont show the turn card but he says if you are observing the tell correct you will see he is excited because he hit trip kings on the turn. WELL come on the other guy has queens full for crying out loud. He says he is excited because he has 3 kings to the opponents 3 queens. If you are going to write a poker book at least proofread the dam thing and pick up on that. That kind of turned me off to the book when he emphasizes observation and then doesnt even pick up queens full beat 3 kings. Some other stuff in there was great. Especially about concealing your own tells. Pretty good book. Get the Harringtons first obv if you havent read them

An excellent book, although, could do without Phil's "validation" sidebars, which just usually says "yea this is right, it happened to me once when..." and then goes on to just repeat the text that Joe just went over. Move over Philly boy, and let Joe do the talking.

Also, you can check out Joe's articles published in the monthly FBI magazine when he was an active agent. They are on FBI web site. You'll have to do a little snooping about to find them, but they're there.

I've read quite a few books on Poker. All the Harrington and Sklansky books, Feeney, Hellmuth, Gordon, and so on. And most have helped me improve my game.

This book has "turbo-charged" my game, both in cash games and tournaments. While most of the information applies better to a tournament where you have time to establish a baseline of your opponents behavior and then read them, I've found I'm getting better reads in cash games.

The material is presented well and the photos are good. And while Phil has his name on the cover, he didn't write it; it's all Joe.

I have played in 4-5 cash games and 3 tourneys since finishing the book and have cashed every time. While my technical game is strong, what I felt this book did for me was enable me to lose the minimum amount of money on hands where I am beat. And this is a key to being successful as a serious player...getting away from hands that can cripple your stack.

It certainly isn't magic, but I did have a sense that I had a "secret weapon" in a tourney I played last week. Finished 7th out of a field of 100 or so and that was somewhat of a fluke as I got all my money in with a set of 10's against KK only to have my opponent get runner-runner QJ for a straight. That was not the result of a good or bad read...I had the guy and he sucked out. But, in every hand prior to that, I felt I had a high certainty of what the other players had and was right in every instance where I could see their hand at the end.

All in all, this is a good book to add to the toolkit. By itself, it won't change your poker world. Added with others and practice, it will definitely improve your game!

After all the hype, I thought this would give much more specific info. Better than Mike Caro's book, but I think his lectures must be much better based upon what i have heard

Great book, easy to read and understand. Navarro is FBI trained on reading people and their responses to stress. The entire book deals with Texas Hold'em. Other books I have read on this subject included reads from other type of poker games and confused issues concerning Texas Hold'em.

I guess I should have known after reading Hellmut's "Play like the Pros". Expecting a book loaded with useful information and hitherto unpublished discoveries I must say I was a little disappointed. A lot of hot air filled in between the really interesting points and information, a lot of repitition, some really strange photos and illustration, some of them even repeated!
That being said the book does offer some interesting hints and advice on how to conceal yourself and reveal your opponents. For the price of less than $20 it is a no-brainer really - you need this one, if not for what it says (Desmond Morris and Caro and basic intuition could have told you most of it already) then for the fact that everybody else will have it as a reference when you sit down at a poker table next time.

Years ago, Mike Caro wrote a book called "The Book of Tells". He later made this into a video - "Mike Caro's Pro Poker Tells". This video is an indespensible guide to understanding the mind of poker players and the tells that result. It is the "cake" for the icing provided by Joe Navarro's "Read Em And Reap" which examines the tells caused by a player's subconscious mind.

If someone is serious about studying tells, they should watch Caro's video first and then read Navarro's book. The information provided by Caro will help you on a day to day basis while Navarro's book will be invaluable for high stress situations. You really need both for a complete understanding of tells.

This might be seen as competition for Mike Caro's excellent _Mike Caro's Book of Tells_ but it is better viewed as a complimentary work, covering different parts of the same theme.

Before we discuss the differences between the two, we have to mention the view that tells are not very important. That view, promoted by people as prominant as Daniel Negreanu, is simply wrong. While tells may not help you very often, a tell can win a very important hand for you or keep you from losing a very large number of chips. As long as tells exist, as Mr. Negreanu will freely admit, they don't have to be seventy percent of the game (a bizarre claim made by the authors of this book)to be important.

This book, in contrast to the Caro book, analyzes very basic neurological reactions, honest tells. In contrast to the "weak means strong" theme of the major tells in the book of tells, this book teaches you to see often subtle but almost always honest indicators of a player's confidence at a particular moment in time. The most important part of this book is the section on not _giving_ information.

The flaws in this book include the above claim that poker is seventy percent driven by reading tells. Most others involve Mr. Hellmuth and his ego and the amount of extraneous bragging that is done by both authors.

This is one great poker book. I play a lot of poker and everything else I've ever read about poker tells (even by the famous Mike Caro) has been completely useless. This book paid for itself the first time I played poker after reading it. I now feel like a professional player able to make some great reads.

Not quite finished with the book (although it is an exceedingly quick read) but I am well enough along to recognize the value in Joe's lessons on limbic responses at the card table. Joe's observations are categorized and rated according to strength. I feel like I have much more artillery in the observational arsenal.

I liked this book a lot. It has a lot of useful information about not only reading tells from your opponents, but also making sure to be aware of not giving off tells yourself. I believe once you feel you have a solid all-around live game, this is a great adjunct to enabling you to read situations better when you are in a 50-50 decision. While the book didn't blow me away, I still think it's a worthwhile read.

I'm on my fourth way through this book and can't get enough.

First off, this is not a Hellmuth book. Hellmuth chimes in every now and then but it's primarily a Joe Navarro book. Joe goes through tell-after-tell and describes what you need to look for and how much value you should give what you're observing at the table.

I've been playing the game for years and took a lot away from this book. In fact, it's already helped with a couple of wins. Seriously.

There will be a few items in here that surprise you and other stuff you already know. But, all in all, you can't go wrong purchasing this book. It's full-up with excellent, excellent material.

This book is short, well-written, and to-the point. The photos are very good. The book puts the material into conceptual frameworks that make remembering and catagorizing tells easier. I have also read Mike Caro's book on the subject.

This book is perhaps the first book to talk about the physiology and psychology of tells at the poker table. Its an absolute great idea to have a former FBI interrogator explain how to tell when people are telling the truth or lying. The only reason why I do not give it 5 stars is because some of the tells described in the book can be a bit impractical. Also with experience you'll learn that Tells aren't like what you see in the movies. Spotting Tells aren't the be all end all factor that will take your game to the pro level. But ultimately a good read, its well written and presents interesting explanations to peoples initial reactions to certain poker stimulus. READ IT!!!

This is a fantastic and enlightening read. What this book does is take the whole psychology of tells to a new level - it explains not only what are a variety of physical tells, but also provides the basis and origin of the human response to both stimuli and anxiety that players experience while at the poker table. Explained from the insights of an FBI agent with 25 years of experience, I really got the sense that Joe Navarro knows what he is talking about with regard to observing and deciphering reactions and responses to situations.

Mike Caro's "Book of Poker Tells" is still the classic from which so many poker players have become accustomed to many common tells, but this work doesn't merely paraphrase those. It gives new insights into what to look for, head to toe. I found the explanations adequate and sensible. And there were plenty of pictures to illustrate what the author means by his explanations. All in all, when you think you have all the theory and math figured out, there is that psychological dimension that can put a player above the competition. This book will be a great start toward that...

I got this book thinking that it was just going to be a reprint of Caro's book of tells. I was pleasantly surprised when i started reading it and found a lot of new and interesting info. It's an easy read (no pun intended) and has definitely improved my game against my opponents who are unaware of their tells. I am now able to see the other people who watch for tells and read their "false" tells also! An excellent companion to strategy is being able to read your opponent. I have already made way more than this book cost me by using the info it gave me. 5 STARS

This is the book that you need to learn how to read your opponents. While Mike Caro's book of tells is the better known volume on this subject, I cannot stress enough that you should skip Caro's and read this one. Not a Hellmuth fan? Dont worry, aside from a short intro, he's not really featured in the book much.

This book paid for itself and then some within a weekend. You should buy it.

I just received this book and I could not put it down. I read the whole book in about 12 hours and I even took time to stop and watch poker on TV to see if I could notice anything...and I did, from top pro's at that. This book was filled with great information that will produce instant results. I would love to talk it up more but I must head to the poker room to put my new knowledge to the test. I can't wait to read it again.

I read the book with great interest, could hardly put it down and could hardly wait till our next home game. However, it is a lot harder to read the players than the book suggests. It didnt help me at all but I think it has possibilities.

This is a great book. Joe really explains things well. Pretty soon you will be reading players like...an open book.

I love this book and read it all the time to remind me of things before I play. A definite read for any poker player who want to make money...

Looks at tells from a different angle than Caro's book.
I feel that after reading this book I have a much better understanding of tells and what they mean.

Joe Navarro's book is truly an eye opening experience for any poker player, at least it should be. I am a seasoned tournament poker player. I read Joe's book prior to a World Series of Poker Circuit Event and it helped me get to 33rd in a tournament of 573. If you read the book, which is an easy read, you will see exactly what he is talking about. Poker players have tells, whether they think they do or not and they are on display. Joe points them out in detail and they are easy to spot. One of my favorite and easy tells to spot is "Happy Feet" and I saw it at the tournament. A player had hit the full house and his legs started bouncing like crazy, he was screaming with his legs that he had the nuts. I cannot recommend this book enough, but then again, I hope you don't read it so I can get the best of you at the next tournament. Again, I am a seasoned player and this single read helped me tremendously. He knows what he is talking about and it works. It's not some system, it is real life and observing how people act and react. They give away their intentions, if you know what to look for. I do now. It's definitely worth the read!

I bought this book a while ago when I was playing several times a week.
This book not only helped me greatly at the poker table where I was able to read players actions as if they were playing with their cards face up for me to see.
But it helped me at work where I am in corrections I was able to tell if I was being lied to by an inmate during an incident interview or if something was in the works by the way they held their bodies while I was present.
I really need to read this again there is a lot of great material in here that made me want to learn more about human behavior on this level.
Im not a WSOP champion but the knowledge I have gained through this book and others like it always lead to the same thing.
Cant play against him he always knows what I have.

In short, the book is intelligent yet quickly discernable and pictures examples to boot. Well put together and a great addition to the 21st century poker players library.

When compared to Caro's book of poker tells I preferred the contemporized/well lit pictures that book featured vs Caro's civil war era photos. Caro's book was ground breaking at the time of it's release but that time was 20 years ago. It has been replaced by "Read 'em and Reap." Navarro has written an excellent book that is well put together and logically constructed. Talking on and on about this book is warranted but counter-productive to trying to write a short review...

On a side note, "Read 'em and reap" also features strain free type face fonts, which allowed me to read the book in two and a half hours. A lot of poker books use a serif typeface, to make it look more intelligent. However, it slows down reading speed and requires increased mental focus for a brain to process the words, feel free to research that statement. This book is easily digestible because of Navarro's high aptitude for instruction, the type font used for the text and the motivation that stems from realizing the material in the book is golden.

And, oh yeah, the book is presented by Phil Hellmuth who has won 11 more WSOP bracelets than any other poker tells author. Pick up your copy today.

Well, trying to learn about all aspects of the game, I wanted to learn more about poker tells.

Of course I have seen Mike Caro's book of poker tells, it is a good one but a bit aged, and I wanted something fresh. So when I came upon a pdf-copy of this one, I took a look. And it was so good that I didn't hesitate a moment, I came in and ordered it right away...

This book is great! Joe Navarro gives his long time experience of how to read people and understand the way they react and why. The fine thing, about it, is that Joe Navaroo is a guy who gained the experience of reading people not in poker games, but in real life tough situations! It shows all around in the book. He just had to adjust his knowledge to the game, learn about the game and then put his "reading" abilities in work on the tables, to give us the results.

This is actually better than anything I have read about poker tells (and I have read a few stuff besides Mike Caro's famous Book of Tells), cause it is right to the point, with lots of pictures showing exactly the faces and reactions of the people, that he describes in his book, right in the same page.

I mean, for a guy like me, coming from Greece and with fine, but not excellent, knowledge of English, this is so important! I can actually see the faces he talks about. And if you consider that I have been only a few times at poker tables (still consider myself a student of the game), only the fact that I can protect myself from being read (there is a whole chapter about that) is crusial!

In fact, I recommend to anyone to buy this book! It costs next to nothing and the first time you will be able to protect yourself from being read from another player (by following Joe's advices), you will be paid back the money you spent about it! Period!

One more GOOD thing is that this book is not too big. I mean, let's face it, the Super System had to be big and extensive, to live to its reputation, but this one HAD to be smaller! Who will spend his time reading a 500-page book on tells? I would prefer to use this time to read a book about poker instead. So this 200-page book is IDEAL in size, just as big as it had to be!

Phil Hellmuth's contribution with his little stories is a good one, giving a break here and there with some stories from Poker tables, from his long experience.

I've got one last thing to say: Tells are vey important for real-life poker players, cause even the best of players, even proffesionals, can't escape from giving tells to anyone who looks for them...

I have been watching "High Stakes Poker" a lot and I could spot tells on Daniel Negreanu, Sam Farha, Mike Matusow (this guy is really full of tells!), Jamie Gold etc...

But I can't forget watching a specific episode: On the table, among others, was Guy Laliberte, a billionaire playing with some of the best pros. In one hand, he watches his hole cards and is rather uninterested, since they were nothing important. Then the flop comes and it hits big for him, a nut straight I think, I don't remember it exactly but it was the absolut NUTS! Guy then gave an "anti-gravity tell" that it was so obvious, you could not ignore it in anyway! His face was calm and uninterested, his moves smooth, nothing else showed anything, but for anyone aware of anti-gravity tells, this one shouted out to the table: I'VE GOT THE NUTS!!!

Not everyone noticed it and a couple of players paid it with some serious cash!

If a High Stakes experienced player like Guy Laliberte (or Mike or Daniel etc) gives tells we can spot, then learning about tells is the next most important thing after learning the game itself!

And "Read 'em and Reap" is the best tool around to do the job!

Hey, Joe, thanks from a reader of yours in distant Greece ;-)

I sat down and read this book cover to cover in a few hours. It has a lot of good information for the recreational and low limit player who is looking to add this new dimension to his/her game. Reading people is not an exact science, but this book gives you a base of knowledge from which to work. It's definitely worth a read.

If you are already a winning poker player then this book is great to add to your poker library. There is no actual "poker" how to's but the information on tells is excellent. When I play live poker I have always tried to look for other peoples tells but was not really sure what was a tell. This book does a great job of letting you know what tells to look for and tells you how to decide if it is a tell or if it is just something that player does all the time. I am not a Phil Hellmuth fan at all but still think you should read this book.

I'm rating this a four. Its really a six. Don't want to tell anyone I've read this. My buddy at my regular game and I have an agreement not to tell anyone else at the game about this book. It must be studied to become an intregal part of your game if your serious about poker.

I read this book less than two weeks time and entered three poker tournments three weeks later- result 1st tournment third place, 2nd tournment 1st and 3rd tournment 1st place. This book is amazing. Worth the money spent!!!

This book is a must read for anyone who wants to be a serious poker player. When you read this book and use the techniques that Joe teaches it will open up a whole new world for you at the poker table. This is a no brainer to buy and read from cover to cover the minute it shows up on your door step. Navarro puts science and real life experience together for one heck of a poker tells book. I would NOT recommend this book to your poker buddies as they could pick you apart with the information they gather from this book.

Being able to read other player's body language is very important in poker. Until recently, Mike Caro's book was the only book available on the subject. Now there are numerous books on poker tells, and this book is by far and away the best of the bunch. The book is very detailed and describes a lot of different tells. The book also expalins which tells are more useful, and how different tells put together can give one a better read on one's foe. It has a lot of unique tells not featured in other books. It also tells the reader how to disguise one's own tells, which is also very important. The book could have used some charts to summarize the information better, and it could also have had some practice examples to help one put the tells to good use. Finally, the book did have some tells that are sort of obvious, but its better to be safe than sorry. Besides these defects, the book was very helpful and informative. It took Mike Caro's book to a whole new level. I recommend it to anyone serious about poker, especially tournament no-limit.

If you're serious about poker, then you need this book. It truly is a must have. If you want to add another dimension to your poker game, this is a great investment. "Two thumbs way up!"

This is a decent take on tells, except it really should have been a pamphlet, not a book. It goes on and on about this FBI guy's qualifications, but really only has a few key points to make. Mike Caro's book, even though dated, is much more info-packed and interesting to read. And Hellmuth is a hypocrite, talking about how Joe Navarro's info helped him learn to hide his tells, then he goes on High Stakes Poker and acts like an idiot.

As far as physical tells go, this is a must-read book along with Caro's classic. If I were to pick on anything, I wish the illustrations were a little better and possibly used professional actors instead of the author.

Also, I'd be willing to pay a little more for a book that uses better paper.

I found this book very good. It opened my eyes to different things at the poker table that I had been missing. I highly recomend it.

This book is certainly more relevant today than Caro's dated one. But, like Caro's work, some of the information is delivered as absolute and true, while we all know there are no such things in poker.

Read 'em and Reap has much to offer but everything in it needs a little salt for seasoning.

very helpful book, describe how to understand players behaviours/reactions at the poker table when they've nuts and when they're bluffing using simple and detailed description with the help of photos

I have a couple of MR. Hellmuths dvd's and they are very very good...I will buy anything he comes out with....I've been happy with all the things I've got of his....shari

if you play live poker it is definately worth reading. I plan on pursuing more of Navarro's work. however, in the short run I mostly play online so it doesn't do me much. But it will prepare me for the future when I hit the casino's more.

this book was overhyped and it sold primaryily because of phills name, i sell this book also and did seel a few but it was onoly because of hellmuths repect, he hurt himself with this one his image will suffer some
i found no value in this, now thats just me, the fbI man did not say anything i did not already know, read em and reap is the wrong title in my opionon because you will gain nothing from reeading this one. david

this book explained in detail exactly what I wanted to know about reading people's body language at the poker table.

In response to Tim Carroll's review - Before you criticize him for that diagram, perhaps you should have read the accompanying text. Yes, he was losing after the turn, but an Ace, 3 or a King (7 outs) would have given him the hand... Without that King on the turn, that's not possible...

Anyway, I enjoyed this book. There were some tells that I had been recognizing in my opponents, but unsure how to interpret. That has changed. I read this book straight through in one day, and then read it again the day following. Since then, I have played in my weekly 20-player tourney twice, and won both times. I was a mortal lock to be a top-5 finisher, but this book has helped me elevate my game substantially. But remember, the information in this book is not the end-all be-all... you have to put everything in context!

But please, for the sake of my bankroll, do not read this book!

I found this book to be more informative and up to date then other books on tells. I learned a great deal and it has been useful. It's a must have, especially with the good reviews it is getting in the poker world because the people you play with will likely have it too.