Poker is a card game that requires some degree of skill to play well. There are a lot of different variations of the game, but all share some common features. In any variation of the game, players bet in turns on their hand. The player with the highest hand wins the pot. Players may also bluff.
Each betting interval, or round, begins when a player places a bet of one or more chips into the pot. Then each player to their left can either call that amount by putting in the same number of chips or raise it by adding more than that. Players can also “drop” their hand (fold), meaning they will not put any more chips into the pot and will forfeit any chips that have already been added by previous players.
In the final showdown, each player reveals their hand. The player with the best five-card hand wins the pot. If no one has a winning hand, the remaining players collect their chips and the dealer must retrieve, reshuffle and recut the cards.
While luck plays a role in poker, the long-term expected value of your hand is mostly determined by the structure and rules of the game. The key to being a good poker player is finding optimal frequencies and hand ranges and knowing when to bet and when not to. This is all possible with a solid understanding of game theory. This workbook will help you memorize and internalize the key formulas, so you can make better decisions at the table.