Caro's Book of Poker Tells

Caro's Book of Poker Tells
Mike Caro
Cardoza Publishing
2003
ISBN 1-58042-082-6
24.95

     Caro's Book of Poker Tells is a book that was ground breaking at the time it was released, giving players a list with pictures of body language to give an idea into the strength of the hand their opponent holds.  Let me first state, this book has nothing to do with the online game.  There is the claim that the book goes into the psychology and body language of poker; however, those of us that have taken too much psychology in college, would agree there is very little psychology included.  For a math mind like Caro, I believe he feels there is plenty.  Really, the book is more a list of different hand positions and movements, torso positions and movements, finger positions and movements, etc., with some reasoning as to why the action occurred.
     After I bought this book (2005), I would go into into the casino and would look around for the familiar movements that were listed in the book.  It caused a distraction for me, and granted I was not very experienced at live play, but was attempting to transition.  (The reason I bought the book.)  The distraction came from the reliabilty factors.  Not only did I have to try to find familiar movements or positions, but I had to determine whether the player was weak, average or strong in their skill level to try to determine the reliability factor of the tell. 
     Instead of playing my game, I was confused as to what I was watching the whole time.  Yes, it gave me a few ideas as to whether a player was weak or strong in the hand, but they were only ideas and I was too inexperienced at the time to be real information for me.  Had I been a stronger player, or more experienced in live play, I might have been able to better read my opponents based on the tell.  However, the real issue with the book is not that there is a need to memorize all the different positions or the reliability factors involved with each tell, but the read is as dry as my college statistics math book.  It's Mike Caro. 
     Mike is an extremely intelligent math mind.  I take nothing away from him and greatly respect the information he provides.  While I have a decent math mind, and can compute odds quickly during a hand without delaying the game, when Mike starts going into his forumlas, I begin to daydream in the same fashion as I did during that college statistics class.  To really garner all the information contained within this book, you really should be a very experienced live game player.  There are concepts that would only be understood by an advanced player and charts that, unless you really like charts, are confusing and easily passed over, though Mike feels they are important.  There is a key code for understanding the charts, but just too much information for the average player to desire to try to decipher.
     While this book has some valuable information, its hard to pull it out for the average player.  They would need to have insomnia and a highlighter to desire to get to it, and to remember it afterward.  "Players are either acting or they aren't.  If they are acting, then decide what they want you to do and disappoint them." (pg.12)  Well, that makes alot of sense, but in order to apply it, you also have to try to learn how to read whether they are an actor or not.  Read'em and Reap goes into this a whole lot better giving you tells to the actor.  I did gather information from it reading it over, years later, gaining more from it in context with Read'em and Reap, but unless you have enough live game experience, I would not recommend this to you yet.  In fact, if you are a new player and have no experience in live games, unless you have an IQ of 140+ combined with a never intimidated attitude, it might just intimidate you enough to prevent you from even trying to play live.  This I would recommend, practice online then just go out and play live.  Worry about this book at a later time. 

     I give this book a rating of 4 hearts out of 10.  It is full of information, in fact, too full.  It isn't a good read for the majority of players out there.  Its almost information overload and fails to provide enough reasoning.  (This post is almost too dry already, so I won't try to explain.)  I know I have flamed Mike's book in this review and it disappoints me to have done so, because I do respect his thoughts.  I'm not saying the book is bad, it is just not a book for the majority of you.  In terms of poker hands, the book is...well...I can't remember what I am holding at this point.  I'm too distracted and still trying to figure out if that dude was picking his nose because he was nervous he might get called.  Or, does that mean he has a strong hand since he doesn't care we saw him knuckle deep.  Geeze, I can't remember if that one is in the book.  $24.95...well, hey...its your bankroll.