Poker is a card game that involves betting in rounds. Each round reveals a community card, or “the flop.” A player’s best hand wins the pot. Ties occur when two players have identical cards of the same rank, but different suits. In that case, the winner is determined by the rank of the fifth card in each hand.

A good player knows how to read their opponents and adjust their strategy accordingly. Some of this information comes from subtle physical poker tells, but most comes from patterns. This includes things like the size of a raise (the larger the raise, the tighter you should play) and stack sizes (when short stacked, you should prioritize high card strength hands over speculative ones).

It’s important to practice your poker game as much as possible to develop quick instincts and avoid mistakes. Watching experienced players also helps. Try to imagine how you would react in the same situations they are in to build your own instincts.

Once you have a solid grasp of the fundamentals, you can start studying more advanced poker strategy. This is where you’ll really start to understand how the game works from a 10,000-foot view. This is where concepts like balance, frequencies and ranges become really engrained in your poker brain and allow you to play the game at a much higher level. I recommend reading this book AFTER you take The One Percent course to really maximize the value of the material.