The following is a piece I, Zach Elwood, wrote in 2014, about what mainstream "behavior experts" get wrong about poker tells, with a focus on Joe Navarro's poker tells book Read 'Em and Reap. It was written for a poker site that ended up going out of business, so I decided to reshare this in 2026. The key takeaways from this piece are: Poker is a unique behavioral environment. General ...
Testimonial for Zach Elwood’s poker tells books and videos: Essay #3
In June of 2019, I ran an essay contest. I'll be posting the four winners of these on the blog. Here's the third one. This is from Karl Zipple. How Zachary Elwood's books and videos have improved my poker game by Karl Zipple “All in.” Not exactly what you want to hear after turning your ace high into a bluff on the river. Damn it, Karl. Why didn’t you just check? So stupid! Everyone ...
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 ...
Talking with Marvin Karlins: Writer of Read ‘Em and Reap
Marvin Karlins has had a long career as a business professor, a consultant and trainer for airline companies, and a writer and cowriter of numerous books and articles, many related to gambling and/or psychology. In the poker world, his biggest claim to fame is that he was the author of the book Read 'Em and Reap, along with his co-writers Joe Navarro and Phil Hellmuth. I talked to Marvin ...
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. ...
Molly’s Game: An Interesting Glimpse Into Private, High-Stakes Poker Games
(Full disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review. I was actually planning on reading it and reviewing it anyway, though, so I took them up on the offer.) Molly’s Game is the tale of Molly Bloom and the super high-stakes private poker games she ran for a few years. These games featured celebrities, billionaire businessmen, rich heirs, famous ...