Poker is a card game played by two or more players, each with their own stack of chips. During the course of a hand, the players make bets into a central pot—or ‘pot’—by raising or calling. The winning player shows his or her cards and wins the pot. A good poker strategy requires a mixture of betting, raising and folding. It also involves reading the other players, observing how they act and their reactions to certain cards. This way, a player can figure out whether to raise or call and then change their strategy accordingly.

While a good deal of luck is involved in poker, the skill element is equally important. If a player plays only when they have the best hand, they will miss out on opportunities where a small risk could yield a significant reward. It’s the same in life: if you’re always playing it safe, you won’t get very far ahead of someone with a more powerful CV.

The game of poker is renowned for its ability to teach valuable lessons about life. Annie writes that one of the most important things is not to fall into the trap of what she calls “resulting,” in which you begin at an outcome and work backward to validate or lambast the people who made the decisions that led up to it. Instead, you should examine the process, and ask whether it was sound or not. To this end, she recommends taking notes when you play and watching replays of bad hands to learn from your mistakes.