Poker is a card game played between two or more players. It involves betting with chips, and each player aims to make the best five card “hand” by using their own 2 cards combined with the 5 community cards. The hand is revealed at the end of a betting interval, and the player with the highest hand wins the pot of all the bets placed during that time.
Poker also offers many mechanisms by which players can strategically misinform each other about the value of their hands. For example, a player may raise their stake despite having a weak hand in order to prevent opponents from calling. Another common strategy is to bet large in the early rounds of a hand to encourage other players to call, hoping that they will fold before the showdown.
Like life, poker is a game of incomplete information. Players must commit resources before all the facts are known, and even as additional cards are dealt, no player has complete control of their situation. However, unlike chess, where the outcome of a bet is determined almost entirely by luck, in poker, a player can skillfully separate the knowable from the unknown, the controllable from the uncontrollable. It is this separation that poker teaches, and it is the primary reason why so many people play it.
