Poker is a card game of chance and skill that has become an international phenomenon. Its earliest roots are uncertain, but it is believed that it evolved from a German game called pochen and from a French game called poule into its modern form. It is now a global card game played in virtually every country where cards are played. The object of the game is to have the highest ranking five-card hand. This can be made up of a pair (two matching cards of one rank), three of a kind, straight, or flush. Some games allow wild cards of any suit.

Many forms of Poker require players to make forced bets at the beginning of each betting round, often referred to as an ante or blind bet. The cards are then dealt, usually face-down. Between rounds, players’ hands “develop,” meaning that additional or replacement cards may be drawn into the cards in their hands. Players may also choose to bluff, or attempt to bluff other players into folding their cards.

The value of a poker hand is in inverse proportion to its mathematical frequency; that is, the more unusual a hand, the higher its rank. Players can also win a hand by making a bet that no other player calls; to call means to match the amount of the bet, while to raise it requires raising the amount put in by the previous player. If a player declines to call or raise, they must drop out of the betting.