In poker, players place bets into a pot (a pool of chips representing money) for various strategic reasons. Each bet must be matched by at least one call, or else the player forfeits the hand. Players may also bluff, in which case they voluntarily raise the bet on the hope that other players will fold their hands. While the outcome of a single hand largely involves chance, long-run expectations are determined by actions chosen on the basis of probability, psychology, and game theory.
The value of a poker hand is in direct inverse proportion to its mathematical frequency, and thus the more common a pair of cards is, the lower their relative worth. This is the basic principle upon which winning poker strategy is built.
A player’s poker success is directly related to how well they understand this principle. If you can understand how to exploit your opponents’ weakness, it is possible to make a very comfortable living at the tables.
One of the most important things to remember is that poker is played based on situation, not cards. Your hand is good or bad only in relation to the other players’ holdings. For example, if you have a pair of kings off the deal and someone behind you is holding A-A, your kings are losers 82% of the time. It’s for this reason that you should pay attention to the other players at your table. Often, players are wearing headphones and/or scrolling on their phones, which means they are missing important information about the betting patterns of other players.