Discrepancy in Caro's Pro Poker Tells?

[Key West]

I mean, I'm sure there are many, but this one is pretty blatant. In the "Bonus Tells" section of Tape 2, Caro says:

"...assuming that, unless you know differently of this particular player, that a soft check is really hoping that you don't bet. It means, 'I'm not going to declare war on you, please don't bet.' Soft check. On the other hand, and aggressive check: 'I check' is usually weak."

Now, wait just a confounded second here. If you're saying, "Please don't bet," you'd only say that because you have a weak hand. You want a bet behind you when you're strong so you can check-raise, right? So that means Caro is saying that a soft check means weak hand.

Then he says, "On the other hand" an aggressive check also means a weak hand? That seems like pretty useless information to me.

Am I misunderstanding something? Which is it? (I know it's never a sure thing, but given no other information, there has to be something you assume.)

[DJGroove]

This is why I don't trust many of Caro's "tells"

I know this doesn't really answer the specific question, but I don't put a lot of stock in Caro's tells. Granted he does have some good ideas (I think his biggest contribution was "weak when strong" and vice versa), I think watching betting patterns and style of play is going to get you much much farther (Says the mainly online player).

The tells Caro outlines and shows are so obvious and exaggerated for demonstration that I find much of their real-world use degraded. And all of this is on top of such vague paragraphs as the one you describe.

I don't mean this to be a flame of Caro, I think that any information you can gain and use in poker is incredibly valuable. But if there are discrepancies such as this in his works, how are you able to judge the quality of this new information?

[elysium]

hi everyone

the reason some of the info mike caro provides may seem contradictory, is that the entire content of everything he gives instruction on, is totally insignificant. he lists maybe 30 different tells. well mike will tell you that remembering each and every one of them, doesn't matter. mike knows that the tell being bandied about here, the weak check tell, wasn't given full detail, because it is insignificant. what mike is attempting to do is lay out some type of equation in words that will for once in your life make you click. and mike feels as though he failed. and he did. you will never understand fully mike's contribution to this game, unless you're crazy. with rare form nuerosis. but what mike did do, is he charlie brown christmas treed the entire game of hold em.

mike's personality is such that had he been in sales, and not poker, he would be one of the greats. well, that happened anyway. and that's mike's contribution. everyone reads his books, watches his videos. in the open scene of 'rounders', what happens? same ol' thing. mike sells more books. great salesmaen are like this. they get out of body like that. some of the world's greatest artists ultimately began flinging paint at the canvass just to try to express what was happening in their business lives. and that sold. paint dashed onto a canvass at 20 feet. sometimes with ashes from their cigarette artistically embedded. 'hey, i'm having an out of body experience.', the artist rambles on as he slings. he doesn't know from ash trays. 'when i kick off, i hope this one puts you out of body. here, take that. like i give chit about r.j.r nabisco.' the great minds get even this way.

same with mike. now granted, mike's not wearing diapers slinging paint, with embedded poop on canvass, but mike sells books. the man sells a lot of books. even if mike is wrong on every count in his 30 point thesis of tells, dogonnit, people believe him. if someone today is acting weak because he is weak, forget about what mike writes, look at what mike's done. if the guy looks strong, and he is strong, thank mike. and predictably, these same opponents will vary, with mike caro rhythm and tempo. and so now the game has a pulse, a caro pulse, that is totally predictable. if you breathe with the game's breathing timing. and move with its caro zigs and caro zags. the tells are in constant fluid evolution, reversing and inversing, with controlled chaos. and that's what mike has done. he has given us means of taking the pulse of chaos. so that we may know what course of action is the correct course, as we follow the beat.

forget about the poop and ashes. look at what the artist has created.

[donkeyradish]

And if you know your opponent has read a Caro book, act strong when strong, act weak when weak! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[DJGroove]

Exactly, this is the reason that I question the utility of Caro now.

People who have read his work will reverse tells, and those that haven't won't. There is no guarantee that you can trust a tell that you pick up.

[SpiderMnkE]

Seems like you will be at the table for a while. So you can watch once and see what the tell means.. then sticky note it in your brain. This guy soft checks when he is weak. If he does it twice you are probably gunna know what it means a third time.

Without the book.. you might not have even cared to notice how he checks. So the stuff might be useful.

Also.. I play online and have never read the book. But just the fact that you are discussing types of tells means the book must do something. You now have more things to look for and think about.

[SpeakEasy]

I found the book useful for exactly the reason state above -- it taught me what to look for at the tables. Observe the tells yourself, and decide what they mean.

Great example-- I'm playing 15-30 hold 'em. I'm heads up against a short stack (he's been bleeding himself dry), he's first to act. I have A8o. Flop comes ragged -- something like J-6-2. He checks, and turns and gives me the hardest stare-down ever witnessed at a 15-30 table -- eyes wide open, unblinking, hateful.

From recently flipping though Caro, I'm thinking that this guy is acting tough, trying to scare me out of a bet. I check to test this theory. Turn is another low card. He checks again while continuing the world's most evil stare. I bet and he calls, never looking away from my eyes. River is another blank. He bets and intensifies the stare. I call, thinking A high is good, and I'm playing the hand now based solely on his tell. He turns over some horrible hand, and my A high is good. His tell is confirmed -- strong = weak. It was blatant.

The point is, the book will teach you what to look for, and decide for yourself whether your opponent is showing natural tells or is acting. From my experience, if you pay attention, it is really obvious with a lot of players. A non-stop talker suddently gets quiet and grows interested in his hand. A guy is suddenly staring you down like he's ready to fist-fight. Someone bets and, contrary to previous patterns, he now won't make any eye contact with you. A guy stalls for an unusually long time to make a close decision. These things happen all the time.

[donkeyradish]

To be fair, one of Caro's suggestions got me a nice pot recently that more than paid for the book.

I had a 7 stud hand that didn't hit anything full of high cards, which I had been pounding against my opponent.

At the end I had to decide whether to bet the pot with my Ace high hand, or chicken out. I thought he probably had made 2 low pair & was definitely drawing to a strong hand.

As I pondered this, chips in hand, he started playing with his chips as if preparing to call (one of the Caro 'act strong when weak tells'). So, I bet the pot, and he let me have it.

[dsm]

Caro is showing you two checking mannerisms that usually suggests weakness. Then somewhere else on the tapes doesn't he show you one or more ways a person might check a hand that usually suggests strength? Like if someone looks away while checking, or the combination of looking down at his chips before checking then looking away while checking, etc...

-dsm

[SA-Bishop]

I think the book has a ton of value because now you know what false tells to give off against opponents who you suspect have read his book and dont give you much credit as a strong player.