Poker is a card game with millions of fans. Writing about it requires top-notch skills, as you’ll need to keep the article interesting and engaging while also providing important information on strategy. Including details about the game’s history and anecdotes can help. Additionally, it’s important to understand how players think and act during a game – including their tells, unconscious habits that reveal information about the strength of their hand.
To start, choose a subject and decide what kind of poker book you want to write. Then, start keeping a file of poker hands that relate to your subject matter. These hands can be ones that you’ve played or ones from another source. As you progress, this file will serve as the foundation of your book.
Once a player has a set number of cards in their hand, they pass them around the table in sets or create a community pile (depending on the poker variant). The dealer passes the cards clockwise, and players can “check” when they don’t want to place a bet, or they can “raise” by placing a bet that’s higher than the one the previous player made.
When the dealer shares the next three cards on the table for everyone to see, it’s called the flop. Then there’s a round of betting, and the highest-ranking hand wins the pot. The best hands are a full house, which includes 3 matching cards of a given rank and two unmatched cards; a flush, which is 5 consecutive cards of the same suit; or a straight, which is five consecutive cards that skip around in rank but not in sequence.