How to Lose in Poker

If you’ve ever watched a horror movie, you know the feeling of’sucking out.’ When the best hand fails to win, the hero gets yanked into the darkness, dragged screaming into the ground, or chopped to pieces by zombies, all while being mathematically outnumbered. Poker is no different. You may get lucky and win, but your opponents could be just as bad, or worse. Here are some of the most common ways to lose in poker.

If you want to win in poker, you’ve got to know the ins and outs of the game. Poker has a lot of visible tells – players sit differently when they have a monster hand, for example. Some even eat Oreos a certain way, which gives you the edge in bluffing and reading your opponents. Whether you’re bluffing or playing a solid hand, the objective is the same: get as many chips as possible from your opponents.

The bluffing and misdirection spirit of the game have a mysterious history. It’s possible that the game evolved from a Persian game called as nas, which French settlers in New Orleans may have first played. However, it’s generally believed that poker has Renaissance roots, and shares its name with French games like primero and brelan. In fact, the English game brag, which incorporates bluffing, is a descendant of brelan.