Poker is a card game in which players place chips (representing money) into the pot when betting on their hands. The order of betting is determined by the rules of the particular poker variant being played. Each player must either call or raise a bet made by the player before him, in order to remain in the hand and compete for the pot. If a player declines to do this, he or she discards their cards and is said to fold. The player who makes the highest hand at the end of the betting interval or round wins the pot.
Each player is dealt five cards. A poker hand has a value in inverse proportion to its mathematical frequency: the more unusual the combination of cards, the higher the rank of the hand. In addition to the basic strategy of evaluating each hand, there are many tactics that can be employed by players. These include bluffing, where a player bets that he has a strong hand when in fact he does not, and calling, or matching a bet made by another player with a superior hand.
The game has numerous variants, and the rules of each vary slightly. However, most share certain core features. In most variants, poker is played with a standard 52-card English deck of cards. The game also uses two additional cards known as wild cards, which can be used to complete a straight or a flush, and to improve other hands by acting as substitutes for missing cards.
Before each betting interval, a player must put chips into the pot to show that he or she wishes to remain in the hand. A player may also raise a bet at any time during the betting interval, provided that no other player has raised before him. If a player is unwilling to call a bet, or raises a bet by an amount that would leave him without enough chips to make a call, he or she must drop the hand and may not compete for the pot again until the next deal.
In some cases, a player will bet all of his or her remaining chips during a betting interval. This is known as going all-in and there are special rules governing how this type of bet is treated.
If two players have identical hands, they are said to be tied. Tied hands share the same rank and are awarded a joint prize. Alternatively, players can decide to tie the prize amount and divide it equally between them. There are a number of ways to play this, but a common method is to count the total number of chips in the pot to determine the amount that must be called, and then raise that amount by an additional equal number.
