Poker is a card game that involves betting between a minimum of two and a maximum of fourteen players. Each player is dealt a hand of five cards and places a bet into the pot (money placed in the center of the table). The highest ranked hand wins the pot. During the course of a hand, players may call, raise or fold. Alternatively, they can also bluff by betting that they have a superior hand when they do not. Then the other players must either call the bet or concede. In some cases, a player will place all of his or her chips into the pot and this is called an all-in bet.
There are many different forms of poker but all of them involve betting and a competition to have the best five card hand. Each round of betting is preceded by 2 forced bets that players must make (the amount varies from one game to another). The player on the button has first choice in the rotation of dealing the cards. The dealer then shuffles the cards and offers them to the player on his or her right for a cut.
A high card is worth the most, followed by a pair of equal cards. Three of a kind is a hand with 3 cards of the same rank and 2 matching cards of another rank. A straight is 5 consecutive cards of the same suit. And a flush is any 5 cards that are of the same suit but skip around in rank or sequence.