Poker is a card game in which players place bets according to the strength of their hand. The highest ranking hand wins the pot. There are many different variants of the game, each involving a number of betting intervals and a range of rules regarding the minimum and maximum stakes for each player. The game is almost always played with poker chips, each representing a specific amount of money (the “pot”). During a betting interval, one or more players have the privilege or obligation to make the first bet. Each player in turn must either call the bet or raise it further. Once the bets are equalized, a showdown takes place. The winning player is the one who shows his or her hand to the table.
The aim of the game is to extract the most value from your winning hands and minimise losses when you have losing ones. This is called the Min-Max principle. The best way to achieve this is by bluffing, because sometimes it is not the strongest hand that wins, but the one who has the courage and tenacity to stay in the game until the end.
Professional players are experts at extracting signal from noise across a wide range of channels, both physical and virtual, and integrating this information to exploit opponents. They also employ a variety of tools, such as software for analysing the behavior of other players and electronic devices to collect information about their own opponents, including eye contact, body language, and even their personal history and background.