Poker is a betting card game that requires considerable skill and the ability to read opponents. Players must determine whether to raise, call, or fold their cards in order to compete for the pot, or winning hand.

Poker teaches valuable lessons in strategic thinking and risk management. Jenny Just, a self-made billionaire and co-founder of PEAK6 Investments, says that when she first learned to play the game as a teen, she realized that poker was the perfect analogy for business. Unlike chess, where all of the information is evident at once, poker mimics real life in that resources must be committed before the full facts are known.

A poker hand consists of five cards that rank in order of their mathematical frequency, the higher the hand, the more likely it is to win. The highest ranking hand is a royal flush, which consists of a 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace of the same suit. Other high-ranking hands include four of a kind (three matching cards of one rank and two matching cards of another rank), three of a kind (three of the same card rank but from different suits), straight, and pair. A player may also bluff by betting that they have a superior hand and hope that other players will call their bet. When a player wishes to raise the stake of the pot, they must raise at least equal to the amount raised by the preceding active player.