Poker is a card game for two or more players. It is played with a standard deck of 52 cards and usually has an ante and blind bets. Players place chips or cash into the pot for each round of betting. The turn to bet always passes from player to player on the left. If a player does not wish to bet, they may “call” the last person’s bet by placing an equal amount of money into the pot. They may also raise their own bet, called raising. When a player has a strong hand, they can bet at it to force weaker hands out of the pot. They can also bluff, using their bluffing skills to fool their opponents into believing they have a strong hand when they do not.
If a player does not have enough chips to call a bet, they must fold their hand and leave the game. The player who folded will lose any chips they had placed into the pot. They can return to the game at a later time, but they cannot win more than they staked.
The rank of standard poker hands is determined by their odds (probability). A pair consists of two matching cards of the same rank, three of a kind is any combination of 3 matching cards of any rank, and a flush is 5 consecutive cards of the same suit. If two players have identical hands, they tie and divide any winnings.
