Poker is a card game in which players place bets on the outcome of a hand. The cards are dealt in a round, and the player who has the best five-card hand wins the pot. Players must make at least one forced bet before a round begins, called an ante or blind bet. The dealer then shuffles and deals each player a number of cards, face up or down, depending on the variant of poker being played.
Then, in turn, each player must either call (match the previous player’s bet) or fold. The remaining bets are then collected into a central pot. Players reveal their hands at the end of a betting round, and then there is a final betting phase with only the players that have not folded having a chance to win the pot.
Successful poker players are able to process the feedback they get from their opponents and use it to model their behavior, exploit weaknesses, and protect themselves. This is a skill that can be applied to many different situations. For example, it is common for people to write about a poker scene where the characters are in a high-stakes game of growing odds and tension over dozens of rounds (hands).
To evoke this kind of scene, writers need to understand the math of poker, including how cards fall together in a hand, how to read tells and other players’ behavior, and how to construct a story that feels authentic. To do this, they should research actual high stakes games and how they unfold.