I'm currently offering a free 24-page PDF excerpt from Exploiting Poker Tells, my 2017 poker tells book. You can get for free by clicking the button below and putting $0 where it says Name a price. Get the free PDF About the book Exploiting Poker Tells is the third and final book in my poker tells series; I don't plan on writing another one. I'm proud of this book because I think it gives a ...
Some interesting behavior in the 2018 $1M-buy-in One Drop
I recently appeared on Steve Barton's Heads-up Poker Podcast, talking about tells in a 2018 Big One for One Drop hand. The hand was submitted by a listener to that podcast, and I was glad they submitted it because I haven't been watching much WSOP coverage this summer and I might have missed it otherwise. The hand features a pre-flop shove from millionaire Rick Salomon (also known as the guy ...
Thoughts on “more/less likely” phrasing in poker tells content, and on unexamined blind spots
For a long time, I've been doing a bad job phrasing a very basic and integral poker tells concept. For a long time, I sometimes have used the shorthand phrasing "more likely" or "less likely" to refer to how behavior might affect the likelihood of a player having a strong hand or a bluff, and this bad phrasing on my part has led to unnecessary ambiguity and confusion on part of readers/viewers. ...
Press Release: “Reading Blockchain Tells” new source for cryptocurrency news
Update 4/7/18: Due to lack of website traffic, Reading Blockchain Tells has been shut down. Thanks to everyone who showed their support. It was a fun week-long ride while it lasted. Press release 4/1/18: Based on the advice of my marketing consultant and best friend Steve Schultz, I’m announcing that I’m entering the cryptocurrency industry, effective immediately. From here on out you’ll ...
Charlie Carrel talks about tells in a One Drop hand
Recently, on the poker podcast The Chip Race, with hosts Dara O'Kearney and David Lappin, poker player Charlie Carrel talked about a hand he played in the 2017 WSOP Europe One Drop $111K buy-in event. This hand involved some exploitative live reads Charlie made. The full audio of that podcast episode can be found on Youtube (also here's an iTunes link to the podcast episodes). You can follow The ...
Why do pro poker players have reliable verbal tells?
The following is on a topic that people ask me about fairly frequently. Essentially: "Why do so many players, including many skilled players, try to verbally manipulate their opponents in ways that can seem so predictable?" Related to this is the question: "These players must perceive an advantage to this behavior/manipulation or they wouldn't do it; what is the advantage they ...
Poker tells book translations
My first book, Reading Poker Tells, has been translated into five languages, and a sixth is coming. I thought I'd make a page with all the translations visible: www.readingpokertells.com/translations. A couple of these, French and Italian, are available for free. My second book, Verbal Poker Tells, would be a difficult translation, because it has so many verbatim transcriptions of ...
Analyzing Roy Moore’s statements
People sometimes ask me what I think about real-life (i.e., non-game and non-poker) behavior. Generally, I don't weigh in on such things, because most real-world behavior has a lot of ambiguity due to there being so many unknown factors. (For example, is someone nervous because they're deceiving? Or nervous because they're on the spot? Did someone mis-speak because of some sort of subconscious ...
The state of the Portland area poker scene
I often get acquaintances who visit Portland and ask me for recommendations of where to play poker in Portland, so I thought I'd write a short post about what poker games are running in the Portland area, and give an update on the new "players are required to deal" rules. If anyone spots any wrong info in this or wants to give me some info to add, use the Contact form to let me know; thanks! On ...
Thoughts on the whole “Cate Hall owns Mike Dentale grudge match” event
I didn’t want to watch the Cate Hall vs Mike Dentale “grudge match” thing. I didn’t really care; I’d only followed a little bit of their online Twitter drama. I hoped Cate won and was pleased to see she did, but as to the actual match, I didn’t have any interest. I finally ended up watching recently, seven months after it was played, mainly because I hadn’t watched much televised poker lately, ...