Poker is a card game that involves betting, strategy and psychology. Players place bets in a pot at the end of each round, and whoever has the highest-ranking hand wins. While luck does play a significant role in poker, players can increase their chances of winning by making decisions based on probability, psychology and game theory.

A player starts a hand by putting an amount of money into the pot (the “ante”). They then get dealt cards and start betting. If they want to increase the amount of money in the pot, they can raise their bet. They can also “call” a previous bet, put in the same amount of chips as the preceding player or fold their cards.

Each player tries to form a five-card poker hand based on the card rankings. The goal is to win the pot, which is all of the bets made during a hand. A poker hand consists of the two personal cards in the player’s hand and the five community cards on the table.

A pair of aces or higher beats all other hands. A full house has three matching cards of one rank and two matching cards of another rank. A flush has 5 cards of consecutive rank, but they can be from more than one suit. A straight has 5 consecutive cards of different ranks. If two players have the same poker hand, then they share the pot. This can be done by drawing replacement cards to replace the ones in a player’s hand, although this is not common in most games.