Poker is a card game played by two or more players. Each player is dealt two cards, known as hole cards. The rest of the cards are then dealt on the table in stages: a series of three cards, known as the flop, then a single card called the turn, and then another single card, known as the river. The player with the best five-card poker hand wins the pot.

One of the most important things to understand about poker is that your hand is usually only good or bad in relation to what your opponent has. There is an old saying in poker that you should play the player, not the cards. That means that a good poker player pays close attention to their opponents and reads them in a variety of ways. Most of the time these tells come from subtle, non-verbal cues such as body language or how they play their chips, but sometimes you can also learn a lot by looking at an opponent’s betting patterns.

Experienced players will often study their opponents to work out the range of hands they could have. This allows them to compare their own chances of having a better hand against that range, and then make decisions accordingly. The math behind this is simple enough and over time you will find that it is becoming a natural part of your decision making process. This will be reflected in your understanding of things like frequencies and EV estimation.