Poker is a card game in which players compete for a pot of money by betting on the strength of their hands. The game can be played with one to six people. Each player contributes a small amount of money into the pot by placing their chips in front of them. Then, after each betting round, the remaining players reveal their cards and the highest hand wins the pot. The game is a strategic and social endeavor for many, with professional players spending a lot of time studying their opponents and building behavioral dossiers to exploit them.<\/p>\n
Unlike chess, which has all the information revealed at once, a poker hand involves hidden information. Hence it is harder to model computationally. Nonetheless, in 2015 computer scientists announced an algorithm that demonstrated essentially perfect play for a restricted version of the game with two players and limited bet sizes. This was followed by a boom in commercially available software tools called solvers that can determine optimal strategy for any situation.<\/p>\n