In poker, you can lose a lot of money very quickly. But if you’re smart about it, you can also maximise your profits. This is called ‘MinMax’, and it is one of the main skills that professional players need to have.
The basic game is played with chips, which represent the money that players are betting with. Each player has a certain amount of chips, which they buy in with, and then use to make bets. The chips are usually coloured, and each colour is worth a different amount. The smallest chip is usually white and worth a single unit of money (usually the minimum ante), the next larger ones are red, then blue.
After the players have each been dealt 2 cards, a round of betting begins. This is triggered by the mandatory bets put into the pot by the two players to the left of the dealer. The player with the highest card showing wins the pot.
Players can decide to fold if they don’t think their hand has enough value to win the pot. They can also call a bet, or raise it. The goal of a good poker player is to extract as much value from their winning hands, and minimise losses when they have losing hands. This is what makes poker so challenging. It’s a game that requires people to analyse other players, read them, and exploit their weaknesses. In person, that can include eye contact and body language, but online experts rely on software and databases to gather behavioral dossiers on their opponents.