Techniques for pose estimation and false positive filtering for gesture recognition are described. For example, a method may comprise receiving data from one or more sensors indicating motion of an electronic device, determining if the motion comprises a gesture motion using one or more statistical gesture recognition algorithms, determining a start pose and an end pose for the gesture motion, determining if the start pose and end pose of the gesture motion correspond to a start pose and end pose of a gesture model corresponding to the gesture motion, and triggering a gesture event if the start pose and end pose of the gesture motion match the start pose and end pose of the gesture model. Other embodiments are described and claimed.