Poker is a card game with a lot of skill, especially when betting is involved. It’s a fun and exciting game to play with friends or strangers and you can learn a lot by reading books on the subject. However, if you really want to take your game to the next level it’s important to get together with a group of people that are better than you and play frequently.

Getting better at poker requires a combination of learning new skills and improving your existing ones. The first step in this process is becoming familiar with the basic rules of poker. Then, once you know the rules you should focus on developing your game strategies. This includes playing hands that are the best for your situation, understanding how to read other players’ tells and using your position to improve your bluffing opportunities.

One of the most difficult things to learn in poker is how to spot and exploit weaker opponents. The key is to strike a balance between survival and chip accumulation by implementing timely aggression in the early stages of the tournament. During this stage, it’s critical to avoid limping and only raise your best hands such as suited connectors or small pairs. It’s also important to be patient and avoid raising every single hand. This way you can build up a big enough stack to make it through the early phases of the tournament. After the flop you should focus on exploiting other players’ weaknesses by making value bets with strong hands.