Since we're in the books thread, and derailed on tells: Caro's Book of Tells. Good, bad, indifferent? Good when no one had read it yet? I mean, I already own it, and I guess it's sort of true in the home games I've played, but to rely on in a card room setting?

The excerpt (that he has made available for free) of Acevedo"s Modern Poker Theory is outstanding, BTW. Thank you @sixsevenoff for the rec.

I highly recommend "Read em and reap". It goes into why many tells are exhibited in the first place and most importantly, what to look for.

As to the people that sit there and stare at you, ... it's almost certain they have never read a decent book on tells.

You’re quite a bit behind on book of tells.

Have that book and I would highly recommend it to everyone in my player pool.

But if you are looking for the latest on tells, I would check out Zach Elwood. I also wouldn’t mind if everyone in my player pool reads it.

Zachary Elwood actually recommends Caro's book in his own book.

Take me to the river by Peter Alson is also about friendship not just poker, dating, and one summer at the wsop.

I remember chatting with shaniac on pokerstars in the chat box during the 5min break in an mtt about this book (Shaniac) is friends with the author of this book and is in the book himself

This is truly an awesome book and I gifted it away to a random at the tables in Vegas during live play one summer.

This was back in the day obv

I have to go to Vegas for 5-6 days every month on business. So I have started playing low stakes, 1-3, 3-5, NL,. I am strictly a recreational player, if I come out ahead $100-$200 over 4-5 days I'm happy and if I lose $200-$300 I walk away. In the past, I have used Ed Miller's Small Stakes No-Limit Hold Em as a training guide. Is this still a good go-to for small-stakes live games? I can download a Kindle edition for $10.00. Are there other NOT TOO TECHNICAL books I should consider?

I see a lot of training software. Any recommendations. Looking for something not to complicated that will help me plug any leaks I may have.

Thanks in advance,

Mike

Ed Miller "The Course".

Caro's book has been around for a long time. Most villains have long avoided the tells in the book. It does have value in making sure you aren't giving out tells, though. It is worth a read, but you can ignore the value of the tells.

This is where I stand on most books of tells. They’re more to make sure the reader isn’t doing them. And to potentially do them at opportune times if you think it could work to your advantage.

Most of trying to figure out your opponents tells will take hundreds, if not thousands, of hours playing against them to see the situations arise with specific tells and seeing them multiple more times to get confirmation that your assumptions are correct. This process could take so long because we don’t always see what they showdown with, so while you might think their doing xyz with a certain subset range, they could be doing it with a much different range than you realize.

With all that, it’s better to spend your time to learn how to calculate a range for your opponent and determine how your range or hand plays against that range, understand the odds and equity associated with your action and how they relate and act accordingly. If you play a significant number of hours, this will help you loads more.

Well, yes and no. First, I 100% agree that tells are a minimal part of winning poker. However, there are some that are involuntary, hard to fake and very reliable. Some of the books out there go into the why behind the tells, like "Read em and Reap" and Zach Elwood's books. When you get a deeper understanding of what you're seeing, you go beyond the rather simple application that Caro provided.

Mind you, I do think Caro's book is a must read on the subject. It's just that it should be treated as a Tells 101 course, with much more to come.

+1 on this.

Care to elaborate?

That book was probably my least favorite and where I stopped buying his book.

The games the book targets and the ideas in it just resonated with me.

I was probably way too much of a nit, and the aggression the book taught was important to my game.

Also the idea of generally just listening more to what your opponents are telling you with their bets. I would CONSTANTLY be telling myself people were trying to bluff me. And at live, low buy-in NL it's just not true.

It's also very readable. I tried reading "Easy Game: 3rd Edition" by Andrew Seidman recently, and couldn't get through it. The writing felt off to me.

I'm in no ways an expert, but I just like the book.