In poker, a player aims to form the best five card hand possible using their own two cards and the community cards dealt after each betting round. The player who makes the highest ranked hand wins the pot (all the chips bet so far). Each player starts with an equal amount of money and a blind bet is placed before players get their own cards. This creates an immediate pot and encourages competition.
One of the most important aspects of the game is knowing how to read your opponents and how they react to different situations. The more you play and watch experienced players, the faster and better you’ll become. Observe how they bet and look for tells such as a hand over the mouth to conceal a smile or a hand shaking to indicate nerves. You can also learn to recognize aggressive players by their risk-taking tendencies such as raising early in a hand before the other players have seen their cards. Conservative players can be identified by the way they fold their cards. These players usually only stay in a hand when they have a strong pair or three of a kind and can often be bluffed into folding.
As in any game of incomplete information (whether poker, finance or anything else), deciding under uncertainty means estimating the probability that you will get the card you need to make your final hand. This is best done by keeping an open mind and considering a variety of scenarios and probabilities. The book Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts is a great resource to help understand how to do this.