Poker is a card game where players place bets with chips (money) and try to make the best 5-card “hand” using their own two cards and the five community cards. The player with the best hand wins the “pot” – all the bets made so far in the current hand, plus any additional money contributed to the pot after that.
The game requires quick instincts and good awareness of your own strength and weakness. Practice and watch experienced players to build these skills. However, be careful not to copy their moves, as every situation is different. The goal is to develop good instincts and use them to make smart decisions quickly, rather than trying to memorize complex strategies.
Professional poker players are experts at extracting signal from noise, and integrating information across many channels. They use software to build behavioral dossiers on their opponents, and even buy records of their opponent’s “hand histories.”
A key principle is to minimise losses when you have a losing hand, while maximising winnings when you have a winning one. This strategy is called MinMax.
It’s also important to avoid tilt – being emotional in the face of losing a hand can lead to bad decision-making. This is particularly dangerous for high-stakes players, who risk their entire livelihood on a single hand.