Poker is a card game that involves betting and wagering between two or more players. The objective is to extract the most value from your winning hands and minimise losses when you have a losing hand. This is also known as MinMax – Minimise losses – Maximise wins.

You can learn to read your opponents in poker by looking for tells in their physical body language, and you can learn to predict how they will behave from past experiences at the table. This can give you a significant advantage over your opponents, as it allows you to maximise the value of your own winning hands and bluff against their weak ones.

One of the most important lessons in poker is understanding the importance of risk and reward. This is a key component of decision-making, which can be applied to other areas of life such as business and personal relationships.

Poker requires a lot of discipline and focus. You have to be able to commit to smart game selection, choosing the games that will maximize your profits and avoid games that are unlikely to offer you the best learning opportunities. You also have to be able to manage your emotions at the table, especially when you’re in a bad situation. But the good news is that poker offers a safe, controlled environment for learning these skills. It’s not perfect, of course — you can still get killed at the poker table or lose your entire bankroll in one session — but it does help to separate the unknown and uncontrollable from the knowable and controllable.