Poker is a card game that tests your mental and emotional skills. It also teaches you to assess risk and reward. In addition, it builds your intuition by exposing you to different playing styles and approaches. Observe how experienced players react to various situations and try to mimic their strategies to improve your own.

A good poker player knows how to read his or her opponents. The most common way to do this is by studying their body language. A nervous or agitated face may signal that they are holding a strong hand, while a calm or relaxed one indicates that they have a weaker one. Additionally, players should learn how to conceal emotions while playing a hand to avoid giving away tells.

Another important skill to have is understanding ranges. While new players may be tempted to put an opponent on a specific hand, more experienced players will work out the range of cards that their opponent could hold and then estimate how likely it is that the opponents hand will beat theirs. This will help them to make more profitable calls.

A final skill to have is the ability to exercise pot control. If you have a strong value hand, you can raise to inflate the pot size and scare weaker players into folding. Alternatively, you can raise to bluff and try to outmaneuver your opponents. However, if you don’t have a strong hand, it is better to call so that you can minimize your losses and keep the pot size manageable.