A game of incomplete information in which players have two cards and five community cards to make a “hand”. The value of a poker hand ranks in inverse proportion to its mathematical frequency. Players may bluff by betting that they have a superior hand, forcing other players to call the bet and concede.
Each player has chips (representing money) which he or she can use to place in the pot during each betting interval. The first player to act places in the pot his or her chips plus an amount equal to or greater than the total contributed by the players that have preceded him. This player is known as the active player.
Once a betting interval has begun, each player in turn reveals one or more of his or her cards to the players to his or her left. This is referred to as the showdown. The player with the highest ranking hand wins the pot.
The best poker players are sensitive to their opponents’ tells – involuntary reactions that can be picked up by careful observation. A tell can be any repetitive gesture, such as touching the face or obsessively peeking at the good or bad cards in a player’s hand, a change in timbre of voice, twitching of eyebrows, or darting of eyes, that suggests excitement or anxiety. Taking note of these and other non-verbal tells helps a player to decipher whether his or her opponent is holding a strong hand or is bluffing.