Phil Hellmuth Presents Read 'em and Reap

by Joe Navarro

very great player knows that success in poker is part luck, part math, and part subterfuge. While the math of poker has been refined over the past 20 years, the ability to read other players and keep your own tells in check has mostly been learned by trial and error. But now, Joe Navarro, a former FBI counterintelligence officer specializing in nonverbal communication and behavior analysis--or, to put it simply, a man who can tell when someone's lying--offers foolproof techniques, illustrated with amazing examples from poker pro Phil Hellmuth, that will help you decode and interpret your opponents' body language and other silent tip-offs while concealing your own. You'll become a human lie detector, ready to call every bluff--and the most feared player in the room.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Games

240 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Joe Navarro is an author, public speaker and ex-FBI agent. Navarro specializes in the area of nonverbal communication or body language and has authored numerous books.

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has probably made me a few thousand dollars, and counting. Before this book, A comparable title by Mike Caro Caro's Book Of Poker Tells was the only resource on poker tells. It was clunky, focused on 7-card stud, and told us mostly what we already knew. Welcome to the 21st century of poker. Navarro completely dissects the player sitting across from you and helps you not only gain that edge of reading his cards (invaluable in itself) but also lets you focus on what tells you are broadcasting. becoming invisible at the poker table is a very important tool that this book gave me and will give any reader.

Don't be put off by the appearance of Phil Hellmuth on the cover. His influence and voice is limited to an introduction.

[Glen Demers]

Good information if you play live poker, Mike Caro's book of Tells is getting a little long in the tooth. I didn't care for Phil Hellmuth's habit of inserting text about how great he is. Still, I think it's the only book out there about lie detection aimed at poker, that alone makes it essential for any serious live player.

[Will Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good introduction book to playing the player and not your cards. The book introduces you to the subtle movements that may indicate the relative strength of your opponents hand. It is a book that should be read and reread if you want to make money playing poker

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think my regular poker game pals are going to have fresh reason to lament. Books decoding body language are catnip to all poker players, and this is a good one.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book covering how to look for and interpret body language and it's application for trying to read your opponents in poker

Anyone who has looked into this subject is not likely to find anything particularly new in this book - but it is a handy reference point to have all that information in one place.

And it is good to sometimes remind yourself of what you already know - a broken down analysis like this should encourage any reader to concentrate more on analysis and less on emotion; which should always benefit their game

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the only book I read on tells but after reading, I was actually able to see some reps pop up here and there and they seemed to be fairly accurate. I will say it’s important to not just see a tell for someone being nervous and assume it’s a bluff, I was watching two people play a hand and caught a nervous tell on the raiser, he ended up having quads and afterwards said he was nervous he was betting too much to get a call.

[Ngan Nguyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book about poker tells I’ve ever read but I find it very useful.
Added a few new weapons in my arsenal after reading this book.
Half way through it I made it to Day 2 at a million $ tournament with perhaps one of the biggest stacks.
Excited to apply some of the things I learned from it from now on.

[Thomas Culkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for any poker player.

[Frédéric Hayek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative! I just happened to dislike the structure of the book and its repetitiveness.

[James L · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book. It repeats alot of information from his book "what every Body is saying" . However, any reinforcement of information is great

[Theo Kaubisch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some parts are relatively basic but quite valuable for live players

[Glenn Yu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book will not be particularly helpful to inexperienced players of the game. For these players, I think time will be much better spent getting a grasp of basic strategy. If you don't understand basic strategy, you will never understand how to use these tells correctly. At the end of the day, if you're in position on the flop with JJ on 10 9 4 rainbow, you should c-bet regardless of the tell you read from your opponent. I think the use case of this book is mostly in higher level games, where people are not leaking through unsound, exploitable strategies and are approximating game theory optimal play. At these higher levels, there are diminishing returns to getting theoretically better at the game such that huge gains can be made by picking up small tells in big spots.

While the book started off strong, I was annoyed by how poorly organized this book was. Rather than beginning with first principles and then systematically discussing specific tells, the book is organized in a series of increasingly redundant chapters. After the first 100 pages, maybe 70% of the book is repetitive. That said, I'm excited to employ some of Navarro's tips next time I play live poker.

[Some · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all the poker books I have ever read, and based upon a decade of law-enforcement training and experience, there is absolutely no better book to prepare your mind and perception for the shenanigans that goes on at the poker table, and in all of life as you interact one-on-one or in small groups. Specific and uninhibited, based upon what the body and mind cannot control...a blueprint for discernment.

[Hussain Elius · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would recommend the book to anyone who is a beginner/intermediate into the game of Poker and is smart enough to know the game goes beyond mathematics and luck. If you have, however, read books on Body Language before (mention goes to The Definitive Book of Body Language), you won't find anything new here.

tl;dr: Observe.

[Erin Parisien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, imagine that, Erin reading a poker book, I know. =) However, even if you aren't a poker player I would highly recommend this little gem. I've found it incredibly useful on and off of the felt. You get a great sense of body language, and let's face it, who wouldn't benefit from learning about that?!

[Raphael Clayette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book about tells. I am a poker novice but Joe Navarro seems to know what he's talking about, despites some bad critics about this non-pokerpro author. He does not pretend to teach EVERY tells too. So it is an interesting books for someone on the path to tell reading.

[Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic book! It's a pretty quick read with lots of really good, to the point body language reading book. I can't wait to try and figure out my family member's tells over the game table during Christmas.

[Frankx99 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good at explaining physical tells and their meanings at the Poker table

[Matt Warfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on Poker Tells. Can't wait to try them out! Quick read, too.

[Erik · Rating 1 out of 5]

You're better off re-reading Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still working my way through this, slowly. I like that Navarro presents some very different techniques than Caro does in his popular book.

[William Herbst · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this to be fairly unhelpful and underwhelming. It did not translate into any better reads at the table for me.

[Lukáš Konečný]

This book is an excellent walkthrough of the general various tells players exhibit at the tables, backed with scientific evidence as well as years of FBI experience in using "tells" to take down the bad guys. The book is a very easy read, about 200 pages with many example photos. I read it in 4 hours, finished it the day before my 2nd live holdem tournament ever. It was a small local event, $50+5 NLHE with no rebuys and insanely quick blinds (no antes). There were about 40 entrants with top 5 paying. I ended up making the final table and busting out in 7th after getting horrible cards all day. As the tournament progressed, I noticed that there were some $1/2 NLHE side games starting up. I went home, got $60, and came back to play. I turned 60 into 231 in less than an hour, covering my entry fee and then some.   Read 'Em And Reap undoubtedly gave me a huge edge in both the tournament and the cash game. I distinctly remember profiting over $80 in one hand because I spotted a tell, and bet accordingly. In the tournament, I also bluffed at 2 large pots to win- all because of the tells I was picking up as a result of the book. I am still very slow at picking them up, but on my first day of applying these techniques I was very profitable for it. Thanks Joe!