Poker is a card game that requires skill and practice to be successful. Players must understand the rules and how to read their opponents. They must also be able to write well in order to describe the action of the game and the characters. They should also be familiar with the different poker variants and their rules. Additionally, they must be able to recognize tells, which are unconscious habits that reveal information about a player’s hand. These include eye contact, facial expressions, body language, and gestures.

During a poker hand there are rounds of betting in which each player may choose to check (pass on the bet), raise, or call. A raise means placing a number of chips into the pot that the previous player must match or exceed. The first player to raise is usually the one that has the highest poker hand, though in some cases this isn’t always true.

A good poker player must be comfortable taking risks, even if they fail. If they see their odds of winning a hand dwindle from round to round, they should probably change strategy and fold instead of continuing to try for the impossible. Just says she learned this as an options trader, and it has proved useful in poker too. However, she admits that it’s a difficult skill to master. “A lot of people don’t know when to quit,” she says. “They’re afraid to lose, but they don’t understand risk management.”