Official poker is a game of skill and a test of nerve. Whether you play socially for pennies or professionally for thousands of dollars, you need to minimize your losses with poor hands and maximize your winnings with good ones. In addition, you must be able to judge the quality of your opponents’ hands and decide how much to bet based on that assessment.
In most games, players can bet only a fixed number of chips during each betting interval, typically five or ten chips. In some games, the limit may vary during the course of a hand, such as before and after the dealing of the flop in Texas Hold’em.
If you cannot call a bet during a betting interval, you can drop out of the hand without losing any chips. You can also raise a bet by betting more than the minimum amount. If you do this, the other players must raise their bets to match yours.
You must keep your cards visible at all times, except when you are deciding how to play your hand. Although verbal declarations of a hand are not binding, deliberately miscalling the contents of a hand with the intent to cause another player to discard a winning hand is unethical and may result in forfeiture of the pot. In the event of a major infraction, a player’s membership with WFP will be revoked and he or she will not be allowed to participate in any future events.