Poker is a card game played by two or more people. It is a game of chance and skill, and its play and jargon permeate American culture. The game is also popular in the rest of the world, and variations on it are played in many different places.
The game has several betting intervals, or rounds, and ends with a showdown in which the players reveal their cards and declare whether they have won or lost the pot. Each round begins when a player makes a bet of one or more chips. Players may “call” that bet by putting into the pot at least as many chips as their predecessors, “raise” (put in more than enough to call) the bet, or drop out of the betting interval altogether.
When a player has a premium opening hand, such as a pair of Kings or Queens, she should up the stakes by betting aggressively. She can even bet all in, meaning that she is willing to put all of her remaining chips into the pot on the next turn.
To succeed in poker, a player needs to understand the odds of her hand and be prepared to change her strategy if those odds deteriorate. This is a lesson that Jenny Just, the self-made billionaire who has become one of the game’s most prominent female players, has learned in her career as a Chicago options trader and in her years of playing poker.