Poker is a card game played between two or more players sitting around a table. Each player places chips (representing money) into the pot when it is his turn to bet. The goal is to win the round by having the highest ranked hand when all betting is finished. The winner receives the entire amount of chips placed in the pot.
When it is a player’s turn to bet, he can choose whether or not to raise the bet and how much. Players can also check (match the bet of the person to their left) or fold if they don’t want to play the hand.
The game is typically played with a standard 52-card English deck of cards, plus one or two jokers (wild cards). It is possible to play with as few as two people, but the best games are usually four to six players.
Each player is dealt 2 cards face down (hidden from other players) and then five community cards are revealed in a series of three stages called the flop, the turn, and the river. Each player then builds a 5-card hand using their own hidden cards and the community cards.
The best hands are a full house (3 matching cards of any rank), a flush (2 matching cards of the same suit), a straight (5 consecutive cards of any rank), and a 3-of-a-kind (4 matching cards of any rank). A high pair contains two identical cards of the same rank, such as two six’s.