Poker is a card game in which players compete to win a pot, or share of the total amount of bets made. There are variations of the game that can be played with 2 to 14 people, but the ideal number of players is 6. The player with the best 5-card hand wins the pot. Players may choose to raise or call bets. The game also allows for bluffing, which can be beneficial when an opponent believes you have a strong hand.

The complexities of the game provide a rich mosaic of strategies and psychological nuances that are a feast for the mind and offer a host of metaphors for constructing compelling fiction. The unpredictability of poker, for instance, mirrors the twists and turns of a narrative. And the concept of a “poker face” is a useful metaphor for describing a character’s hiding of his or her true intentions.

A variety of earlier vying games existed, including the Primiera (Italian, 16th century – present), Primero (16th – 18th centuries), Gilet under various spellings (18th century), Brelan (17th – 19th centuries) and Bouillotte (19th century). All of these have little bearing, however, on Poker.

In poker, as in life, it is not a matter of whether you have the best starting hand or not. It is a matter of how well you manage your chips throughout the game to maximise the value of your winning hands and minimise the losses from your losing ones. This strategy is known as MinMax.