Poker is a card game where players place bets and the highest hand wins the pot. Typically the first player to act (betting usually goes clockwise) puts in an amount called an ante. Once everyone is in, the dealer deals each player two cards face down. These are your hole cards. If you want to play your hand, you must bet twice the amount of your ante. You can also fold, letting the other players continue to bet into the pot.
The dealer then deals three more cards face up in the center of the table, known as the flop. These are community cards, meaning anyone can use them to create a five-card hand. After the flop, there’s another round of betting that starts with the player to the left of the dealer.
Advanced poker players think about their opponent’s range of hands when they make a bet. They know that the opponent could have a flush, a full house, a straight, or two pair.
While there are a lot of factors that can affect a player’s success at poker, the divide between break-even beginner players and big-time winners is not as wide as people might think. Often, it’s just one or two small adjustments that help beginners start winning more. One of those adjustments is to learn to view the game in a more cold, detached, and mathematical way. Watch videos of top players like Phil Ivey taking bad beats and you’ll see what we mean.