When playing poker, you need to be able to read other players and understand how they are reacting. This can be a difficult skill to develop, and even experienced players will make mistakes or encounter challenging situations. However, learning from other players’ gameplay can help you to avoid similar pitfalls and adopt successful strategies into your own game.

You start each hand by placing an amount of money into the pot, called antes, blinds or bring-ins, depending on your table’s rules. Then the cards are dealt. The dealer usually announces which hand is highest at the end of the betting round. The player who has the highest ranked hand wins the pot – all the bets placed during that hand.

The highest ranking hands are straight, flush and three of a kind. A straight contains 5 consecutive cards of the same suit, and a flush contains 2 matching cards of one rank plus 3 unrelated cards. The high card is used to break ties.

While you are waiting for your turn to play, watch other players closely to pick up on tells. This is particularly effective when you are not involved in a hand – the down time allows you to focus on reading other players’ body language, facial expressions and hand signals. As you continue to observe the behavior of other players, they will begin to ingrain themselves into your own instincts. Over time, you will find that your understanding of things like frequencies and EV estimation become second nature.