Poker is a card game in which players place bets after each round of dealing and revealing cards. The player with the best five-card hand wins the pot. Players can also reveal a single card at a time, known as exposing their hand. The revealing process takes place clockwise around the table.
The value of a poker hand depends on its mathematical frequency; the more rare a combination of cards is, the higher the hand ranks. Players may also bet that they have the best hand by betting, or bluffing, against other players holding superior hands. Whether or not a player’s bluff is successful depends on the other players’ reactions to it.
The game of poker offers a rich narrative vehicle, because the elements of plot conflict are aplenty. To make an article about poker interesting, however, a writer should focus less on the specifics of the rules and more on the reactions of the players. Describing a series of card draws, bets and checks is not going to grab the attention of any reader. Instead, a writer should concentrate on the characters’ reactions to each other and their by-play at the poker table—who flinched, who smiled, who went all in with two pair, etc.