Poker is a card game with a significant amount of luck, but the players can control how much skill is involved in their play. While some players have written entire books on their specific poker strategy, the best way to learn how to play is through detailed self-examination and observing experienced players in action.

The most important aspect of winning at poker is playing in position versus your opponents. This gives you a clearer picture of their actions and makes it easier to figure out the strength of their hands.

While there are a number of tells that can help you determine the strength of an opponent’s hand, many of them are unreliable. However, it is possible to develop a system for spotting tells by watching players carefully and observing their behavior in the context of the situation they find themselves in. The shortest tells are usually the most reliable, as long tells can be faked by experienced players.

The first step to understanding an opponent’s hand is looking at how they bet. New players tend to get tunnel vision and focus on their own preflop bets. This can lead them to underestimate the strength of their own hand as well as the strength of their opponents’. For instance, if an opponent calls pre-flop with a weak hold like pocket fives then you can assume that they are holding a strong hand on the flop. In contrast, if an opponent raises pre-flop with a weak hand then you can expect them to have a monster on the flop.