Poker is a card game in which players place bets against other players. Each player is dealt a set of cards, face-down, and each round of betting begins when one player makes a bet. In turn, each player may either call (put in the same number of chips as the bet), raise (put in more than the amount of the previous bet), or fold. When a player folds, they forfeit any chips they have put into the pot. In certain situations, a player can also put all of their remaining chips into the pot, which is called an all-in bet.

Once the betting phase has been completed, the players reveal their hands and the player with the best hand wins the pot. Then, a new round of betting with antes and blinds begins.

Professional poker players use mathematics, economics, psychology, deception, and belief to exploit their opponents and protect themselves. These skills are essential to the game’s success, as they make it possible for skilled players to earn more than they paid to enter the tournament.

Despite what the public perceives, professional players are not heedless, risk-seeking gamblers. In fact, they are rigorous students of the game who spend thousands of hours drilling the most optimal strategies. The best poker players can extract signal from noise, and they use their knowledge of the other players to form behavioral dossiers on them that they share with their fellow competitors. In the process, they are attempting to turn poker into a game of detached quantitative analysis.