I've made quite a few free email courses on poker tells/behavior over the last few years. I figured it'd be nice if you could see them all in one place. Video Series email course This 3-part course includes a free 15-minute video on "defensive chip handling" from my Reading Poker Tells Video Series, and a couple other subjects. This is a good one to watch if you're curious about my video series ...
Trumped! memoir tells tale of Donald Trump’s Atlantic City past
I recently read the memoir Trumped! (Amazon link), which was released in 1991 by one of Trump’s highest Atlantic City casino executives, John R. O’Donnell. O’Donnell spent three years working under Trump, from 1987-1990. I thought putting a book review of this book on my poker blog would be fitting, because the book talks so much about gamblers and the casino strategies on how to lure them in. ...
Analysis of Will Kassouf’s “speech play” in 2016 WSOP Main Event
If you’ve been watching the World Series of Poker Main Event episodes this year (2016), you probably know who Will Kassouf is. He’s a talkative player who got a lot of coverage due to his constant chatter in hands. Not since Jamie Gold has a WSOP inspired such attention, and created such controversy, for his during-hand yapping. I've got a few pieces of content analyzing Kassouf's patterns and I'm ...
Pre-order for new poker tells book available
I'm working on a new poker tells book, which will almost certainly be my last, focused on actual hands and practical applications. It'll probably be ready around the end of 2016. The working title is Reading Poker Tells: Practical Applications. You can pre-order the paperback (ebook included) for $45 USD in the U.S. and $55 outside of the U.S. Unlike my own previous books (and all other poker ...
Verbal poker tell at EPT High-roller event
A couple days ago, in the EPT 10K high-roller poker tournament, the following hand occurred: 10pm: Holz hero calls all-in, busts Level 26 - Blinds 30,000/60,000 (5,000 ante) Fedor Holz's extraordinary day is now over, with the young German making a pretty audacious call for his tournament life...and losing. Holz got things started with a limp from the cutoff (also under the gun) and both ...
Spotting behavioral tells in the game of bridge
A very interesting article from the most recent New Yorker about the Bridge cheating scandal. Besides detailing the scandal, it goes into detail about the tells/reads/nonverbal aspects of Bridge. Here's one paragraph talking about this aspect of Bridge: "Expert poker players often take advantage of a skill they call table feel: an ability to read the facial expressions and other unconscious ...
Bet-sizing and speech, including weak-hand statement
Had an interesting hand yesterday where I maybe should have made a big hero fold based on a combination of bet-sizing and behavior. It's live $5-10. There's an UTG limp (from a guy who is known for limping big pairs first-in). The guy UTG+1, who is usually loose-passive, not often aggressive, and who has only $600 to start, makes it $30. The sizing is very reliable weakness ...
Stretched-lips facial expression when betting
I was working on a new video in my series. This one about the 'stretched-out lips' facial expression when seen from players making significant bets. I put together a little visual compilation from some of the hands I'm using in the video, below. Stretched-out lips communicate concern, so it's not surprising it mostly shows up from players with strong hands. Sometimes it shows up very quick, just a ...
Portrait of a young cash game poker player
This blog post is about a local pro poker player; we’ll call him Maurice, because he’s low-key and he doesn’t want random people knowing much about him. He’s a young guy, in his twenties, who’s one of the best players on our local poker scene. He went from playing small stakes online ($.05-$.10 NLHE and small buy-in SNGs and MTTs) in 2009 to playing $1-2 live after April 2011, to moving ...
Review of poker tells training from Galvin Bay
The following is a review for my poker tells video series sent in by Galvin Bay. Galvin is a professional poker player who currently plays in Macau games. He has also written some poker books (like The Art of Poker) and created poker training videos. Below he gives a review and also some notes on his experience with a couple specific tells. ...