Poker is a card game in which players compete for an amount of chips contributed by all players (called the pot). Each player has a choice to either call a bet, raise a bet or drop out of the competition.
Each hand consists of a combination of five cards. A Straight consists of consecutive cards in any suit, while a Flush consists of five cards of the same suit. One Pair consists of two cards of the same rank, and a High Card consists of the highest card not in a pair. If a player has the highest hand, they win the pot.
The game can be very strategic, with players misinforming each other about the strength of their hands. Strong players can choose to check and continue building the pot slowly, while weaker hands can be raised to intimidate opponents into folding before “showdown” when all remaining players reveal their cards.
Experts in areas as diverse as computer science, decision making and game theory have studied poker, finding it offers a rich set of mechanisms that can be exploited to improve one’s strategy. In addition to their in-person knowledge of their opponents, expert poker players often use software and behavioral dossiers, gathering information to extract signal from noise across multiple channels – including body language, eye contact and even salivation – and integrating them to maximize their profits.
When the Internet exploded with online gambling sites, amateurs joined the game in staggering numbers, investing small chunks of their income to test their skills and, hopefully, make a profit. Their money filtered upwards to a smaller group of top players, who took the game more seriously.