Poker is a card game played by two or more players. Each player has a set of cards and must compete to make the best 5-card hand using those cards and the five community cards in play. A player wins the pot (all of the chips that have been bet so far) if their hand beats everyone else’s.
The game of Poker has a large number of variants, but the basic rules are the same for all: each player must place a forced bet (called an ante) before being dealt cards, and then each player must place additional bets into the pot whenever it is his or her turn to act. This process is known as betting, and it can be the source of much of the strategy in the game.
Players who are unsure whether they have a good hand may be bluffed into calling by aggressive players. This can be done by comparing the player’s cards to their opponents’ hands, or by reading tells—unconscious habits that reveal information about a player’s holdings.
The highest poker hand is the royal flush, which consists of four matching cards of the same rank in a single suit. The next highest is a straight, which consists of 5 consecutive cards of the same suit. The lowest hand is a pair, which consists of two distinct cards. The high card breaks ties when no other hand qualifies.
