Poker is a card game that requires both skill and luck, played in both cash games and tournaments. Although the rules vary between these formats, many of the same strategies apply. Writing about poker should be both engaging and informative, providing readers with useful details about the strategy of the game while entertaining them through personal anecdotes and techniques used during play. The best articles also discuss tells, which are unconscious habits that a player displays during gameplay that reveal information about his or her hand.
The first step in writing a poker article is to decide on its focus and the level of detail you wish to cover. Once you’ve established this, it’s important to start keeping a file of hands that are relevant to your subject matter. This will help you build a comprehensive library of examples to draw from.
Once you’ve gathered your files, you can begin to organize your material in the style of a traditional book. A good way to do this is to use a table of contents and to include an index. This will make your poker book easier to navigate and ensure that all of the relevant information is included.
The main goal of any poker player is to win money by making the strongest possible hand from a combination of their own two cards and the five community cards that are dealt. Players will place bets using their chips until a showdown occurs where players reveal their hands. The highest-ranking hand wins the “pot” which consists of all bets placed by players during the betting rounds.
