Poker is a card game that involves some skill and strategy, but mostly chance. The player with the best five-card hand wins all the money in the pot. Players gamble with chips that represent money, and they can bet, call, or raise (bet more than a previous player).

Professional poker players are experts at extracting signal from noise across multiple channels, using those signals both to exploit their opponents and to protect themselves. This includes reading their opponents’ actions and body language, but also leveraging technology to gain insights into their opponent’s betting patterns. They are able to create behavioral dossiers of their opponents, and even collect or buy records of other players’ hands.

They also read the room and the other players at their table. This is not an easy thing to do, but it’s a key component of success in poker, as well as in life. It’s why there are entire books dedicated to telling you how to read other people, and it’s why many of the world’s most successful poker players are abrasive, loudmouthed, and arrogant.

But they are also incredibly disciplined and focused on the process of learning and improving. They understand that every time they sit down at a poker table, it’s an opportunity to try and make something better out of themselves than the last time. And they are constantly learning and evolving, not just in their poker play but in everything they do.