Poker is a card game played between two or more players. It involves betting with chips (money) and aiming to make the best five-card hand by using your own two cards, plus four community cards dealt after the flop, turn, and river. Each player must ante, blind, or bring in an amount of money before the cards are dealt, and can then choose whether to fold, call, check, or raise. Each action communicates information about the strength or weakness of a player’s hand.

The game requires a high level of discipline to stick to best practices, and an art to know when to break them and adjust on the fly. This is true both of the strategy, which combines probability, psychology, and game theory, as well as the tactics, such as knowing how to manage position and when to bluff.

Bluffing is often depicted as a major part of the strategy, but it should be used sparingly and strategically. Most of the time, a strong player will be able to convey their strength by their actions alone and can avoid bluffing. However, when a bluff does work, it can often lead to huge pots and make the difference between winning and losing.