Poker is a card game where players compete for an amount of money or chips contributed by all the players (called the pot). Minimizing losses with poor hands and maximising winnings with good ones is the underlying skill. Historically, the best players have relied on their innate card sense and psychological conditioning to read situations and opponents, but modern experts acknowledge that the game has many mechanical aspects and sophisticated computer tools can help analyse and optimise decisions.
In each betting interval, or round, one player – designated by the rules of the specific poker variant being played – has the privilege and obligation to make the first bet. Each subsequent player must put in enough chips to equal the contribution made by the player who acted before them, or drop out of the pot.
Once the betting rounds have been completed, the fifth and final card is dealt – this is called the River – and the remaining players reveal their hands. The player with the strongest hand wins the pot.
There may also be side pots for particular combinations of cards, and players can choose to call or raise the bets of other players by indicating their intention to stay in the hand. This information is usually conveyed by eye contact and body language, but online experts use software to build behavioral dossiers of their opponents and even buy or sell records of other players’ “hand histories”. The art of extracting signal from noise across multiple channels and integrating them to exploit and protect against weak players is at the heart of the game.