Poker is a card game played by a small group of players around a table. The game involves betting between players and the pot is won by the player with the best hand. The game has many variants but all are similar in that each player is dealt 2 cards and must aim to make a 5-card poker hand.
Depending on the game rules, one or more players are required to place an initial amount of money into the pot before the cards are dealt. This is called a forced bet and comes in the form of an ante, blinds or both. The dealer then shuffles the cards and deals them to each player, beginning with the player on their left. Once all the players have their two cards they must then reveal their hands and the winner takes the pot.
A good poker player aims to read the opponents in order to determine what their chances of winning are. They will often try to put their opponent on a specific hand, but this can be dangerous. A better way is to work out a range of possible hands that your opponent could have and then estimate how likely it is that their hand will beat yours.
Online play eliminates in-person knowledge of the other players, but professional players compensate by building behavioral dossiers on their opponents and even buying information about their hands. This allows them to extract signal from noise and use the information to exploit their opponents, and also protect themselves.