This disclosure describes techniques for adaptively coding video block header information based on previously encoded video blocks. A video encoder may adaptively select a coding table for use in encoding a syntax element of a current video block based on corresponding syntax elements of one or more previously encoded blocks. In one aspect, the video encoder may adaptively select the coding table for use in encoding a block type of the current block based on block types of one or more video blocks adjacent to the current video block, i.e., neighboring video blocks. The video encoder may also predict one or more other header syntax elements of the current block based on at least one of the previously encoded video blocks. If prediction is successful, the video encoder may encode a flag to indicate the success of prediction.