Review of Blue Shark Optics Poker Sunglasses

A few years ago when I started to learn about reading the physical tells of my opponents at the tables, I spent serious money on sunglasses. But it seemed like no matter what kind of glasses I bought, hyper-light Serengeti or the comfortable Maui Jims I wear now, they all came up short. That’s because they are sunglasses. Unless the game is being played outdoors, sunglasses are not what I need.

This year at the PokerPalooza event during the World Series of Poker (WSOP), I saw that a number of companies had figured this out and started making glasses just for poker, without the “sun” component that made the room too dark to take everything in. My vision is 20/20, but with dark shades on, I still can’t see as well as I want to. I saw at least three different companies offering a solution to this problem with glasses that were at least partially mirrored from the outside, but allowed light to pass through so that the room looked only slightly darker than it would without the shades.

While I was unable to try out a pair from Las Vegas Poker Gear or Holdem Shades, I was given a pair of Blue Shark Optics River Sharks to wear for the Main Event and try out. I promised an honest review and I keep my word, so here we go.

The good news is that we are at least part of the way to where we need to be with eyewear for the poker tables. These glasses don’t hinder my ability to see very much and they certainly don’t darken the room like typical sunglasses. It’s also impossible to catch anything but a hint of movement behind the shades, especially under the bill of a baseball cap. They are light and not unpleasant to wear. I will be trying them out for longer sessions (unfortunately my WSOP didn’t contain any long sessions) and I may get used to them and decide that I can wear them all night.

Now, the bad news. As soon as I put the glasses on, fresh out of the box, it seemed as if there was a smudge on them. I somehow manage to get smudges on any glasses I wear with incredible frequency, so I just cleaned them with the cloth in the box and put them back on. Then, the smudge was back. It seemed there were strange lines in the glasses or some sort of glare, so I pulled them slightly off my face and was able to see exactly what the problem was. It was a huge reflection of my own eye staring at me!

Once I knew what it was, the reflection was a little easier to ignore. Now that I pull them off and look at the inside of the glasses, I can see a perfect reflection of the room rendered upside down. This is clearly a problem, although it will bother some players more than others.

With endorsements from players like John “The Razor” Phan and Kathy Liebert who plays at Party Poker, both of whom have their own signature models, they probably don’t need a glowing endorsement from me to get a foothold in the poker world, but I like them so far, especially in my local card room where the lights are fairly dim.

At a price of around $150, the Blue Sharks aren’t cheap, but they seem to do the job. In darker rooms, the reflection is almost gone and they function correctly, but the brighter the lights are, the worse it gets. Wearing them in a brightly lit room can be annoying. I may just carry these and my sunglasses and switch back and forth depending on how bright the room is.

Thanks to the folks from Blue Shark Optics for the free shades, I’ll pass them onto some other folks who write reviews. Who am I kidding? I won’t do that at all. I’ll wear them tonight at the local card room and I’ll probably keep wearing them until something better comes along.