Poker is a card game played with chips. The aim is to form the best 5 card hand based on the card rankings and win the pot at the end of each betting round. The pot is the total of all bets placed by the players. Each player is dealt 2 cards (their “hole” cards) and then five community cards are dealt face up (“the board”). Betting continues until one of the players has the best hand, or everybody folds.

Winning hands and losing hands happen all the time. The key is to maximise the value of your winning hands and minimise your losses from your losing ones, which is known as minmaxing.

It’s also important to know how to read your opponents. You can do this by watching their body language, reading their betting patterns, picking up tells, etc. By picking up on these things, you’ll be able to figure out whether they have a good or bad hand.

A lot of beginners think that they can eliminate uncertainty by playing safe, meaning only calling with strong hands. However, this strategy only serves to make you predictable, which can be exploited by your opponents. In addition, it can result in missing out on many opportunities when a moderate amount of risk could yield a big reward. You need to learn how to balance risk and reward, and that is a skill that comes with experience. Also, remember that even the best professionals suffer bad beats sometimes. Watch videos of Phil Ivey taking bad beats – he never gets upset about it and is always calm, which shows the mental strength that a good poker player must have.