Poker is a card game in which players compete for an amount of money or chips contributed by other players (the pot). The objective of the game is to have a winning hand at the end of a round. This is achieved by betting on your cards and predicting the behaviour of other players.
There is a large amount of luck involved in poker, but it is also a game of skill and psychology. Even professional players who make a living playing poker risk their careers if they make ill-advised decisions. The pressure to win can lead them to take risks that they wouldn’t consider under other circumstances – such as gambling on a high-risk, low-reward situation.
As a result, poker has moved from an intuitive feel into a game of detached quantitative analysis. Observers of the game are now consumed with analysing hands from top players, in order to glean insights on the ‘correct’ way to play. However, a static snapshot of one poker hand lacks the contextual information necessary to deconstructively analyse it.
Successful poker players have evolved a range of meta-skills that allow them to maximise their profits and protect their sources of relative advantage. These skills are grouped into three dimensions: Opportunities, Strategy and Execution. Each dimension exists on a spectrum, ranging from 1 = terrible to 10 = world-class. The higher your score on each dimension, the more profitable you are likely to be.