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Read 'Em and Reap
Product
Read 'Em and Reap: A Career FBI Agent's Guide to Decoding Poker Tells by Joe Navarro and Marvin Karlins
Hits
- Written by an authority on the subject of nonverbal behavior
- Firmly rooted in cutting-edge behavioral science
- Widely hailed as revolutionary by the best players in the poker world
- Teaches how to observe tells as well as conceal your own
- Uses entertaining poker anecdotes to illustrate key points
- Endorsed by Phil Hellmuth
Misses
- Illustrative graphics are often extraneous
- Claims about how much it will help your game may be exaggerated
Review
For schooling on the observation and application of poker tells, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better teacher than Joe Navarro.
A career FBI special agent with 25 years' experience solving cases running the gamut from espionage to international terrorism, Navarro has now turned his considerable knowledge of nonverbal behavior on the world of poker tells.
Navarro's uncanny ability to tell fact from fiction was revealed to the public when he appeared on a Discovery Channel special titled "More than Human" alongside poker pro Annie Duke. Both Duke and Navarro were able to tell truth from lie better than an electronic polygraph machine, tying each other with a 72% accuracy rate.
In Read 'Em and Reap: A Career FBI Agent's Guide to Decoding Poker Tells, Joe Navarro shares his insights into human behavior and explains how important it really is in the game of poker.
Navarro succeeds in communicating his lessons clearly and effectively to the reader throughout the volume. The interpretation of tells is explained on the basis of scientific evidence and is illustrated through anecdotes by both Navarro and poker icon Phil Hellmuth.
Behaviors and the reasons behind them are examined in an easy-to-follow manner, first in the context of underlying motivations for individual behavior (e.g. high confidence vs. low confidence, tells of intention, pacifying tells) and secondly in that of specific mannerisms and physical cues associated with each motivation (e.g. dilated pupils, trembling hands).
Perhaps the most useful point Navarro makes, at least for the player who doesn't expect to become a human lie-detector overnight, is that concerted and conscientious observation is crucial at all times while at the poker table.
He also instructs the reader on how to avoid giving off tells with a suggested physical routine one can follow while playing.
Read 'Em and Reap does make big claims about how much it can improve your game, but this optimism is tempered by Navarro's realism when talking about the effort and time it takes to learn and apply the lessons he puts forth.
With a foreword and periodic interjections from the Poker Brat, Phil Hellmuth, Read 'Em and Reap manages to keep the reader entertained and engaged while opening his or her eyes to how much information is actually available at a poker table if you're willing to make the effort to understand it.
Details:
- Paperback $18.95
Collins Publishing
