Official poker is a card game that involves gambling, strategy and skill. There are many variants of poker, including stud and community cards. Each hand consists of five cards, and players may bet that they have the best hand or can bluff to win. Players protect their hands by using chips or another object over them and by not looking at them while betting. The best known poker variant is Texas Hold’em.
A poker chip value that corresponds to a dollar amount during play, which allows for the tracking of stack sizes in tournaments. Most cash games have chips that represent different denominations, while tournaments use colored chips with standard values (e.g., light blue chips are worth $100,000). Tournaments report their chip counts by prefacing the number with T$.
The term used to describe the rules of a poker game as enforced by the gaming agency or a professional body. The TDA (Poker Tournament Directors Association) is an international organization founded to increase uniformity of tournament rules.
A poker player who intentionally gives away information about his or her style of play. For example, a player might make bad plays or expose cards in a way that indicates he or she often bluffs (hoping opponents will then call his or her legitimate bets). An agreement by remaining players in a tournament to distribute the prize money according to an agreed-upon formula instead of playing the tournament to completion. This is typically done to minimize bad beats and reduce bankroll swings.