[winky51]

I read some of the posts below, good replies.

I would suggest reading several psychology books on poker. Each have their own tid bit of information that helps your game.

Psychology of Poker:
PoP is a good book to allow you to get into player's minds. I also like some of the recommendations he made about handling other players. Not pissing them off by comments or insults. Make them feel comfortable when they suckout on you not angry like they want to bust you. If they make a strange play ask them why in a nice way. You get insights to their play. It alway helps you identify your playing style. I like to keep opponents predictable, raise when I am behind, call when I am ahead, not bluffing. maximize my profits and reduce theirs. Psychologu of Poker shows the path to put the blinders on the weaker players and guide then down your road of profit.

Mike Caro's Book of Tells:
This books looks silly on the inside. You read this and think "what idiot does these tells"... EVERYONE. Good book to read for learning to read players. It is most useful when dealing with weaker players, and thats most of them [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I have used the knowledge in this book very very effectively.

Tao of Poker, Zen of Poker:
These books are good to get in the right frame of mind. They didnt do crap for me but for others they are the right book. It just didn't put it in a perspective I felt.

Ace on the River:
This accomplished what the 2 above did not, mental focus and purpose.

Phil Hellmuth books and videos:
Even though I don't like his analysis and math strategies for hands, he does always drop little pieces of information on players more than many other poker play books. Things that you only can learn with experience. His video is terrible except for the tells part. That was good. I have only seen the 1st 2 so dont burn me if he improved.

My own 2 cents:
One thing I can't stress enough is to be intraspecive (look within ones self to understand others). We are all humans and we all have the same instinctive reactions to things. Takes a lot of concentration and training to break these habits. If you are honest with yourself and identify your instinctive reactions you can see them in others. Some players can do that some can't.

EXAMPLE:
Weak means strong, strong means weak. Caro said this over and over in his book and its true. Your job is to find out how a player does this. I had to train myself to think of other things when I am in a hand not to give this tell off. I found that if I thought about the hand, the player, or if he's calling, I instinctively react when I am weak by talking or body language and act relaxed when I am ahead. I stopped that tell as best I could. Because I realized that tell in myself I can now see it in others. Be intraspective.

Guess I said too much