Poker is a card game played with a small group of people around a table. Players bet on each other’s hands and the pot continuously until one player has all of the chips or everyone folds. To play, you must place an amount of money into the pot before your turn to act. This is called a buy-in, and it is normally set at ten times the table’s high limit in most limit games and 20 times the high blind in no-limit games. When it’s your turn to act, you can say “call” or “I call” to bet the same amount as the person to your left. You can also raise your bet if you want to stay in the hand.
In a poker game, the goal is to make the best five-card hand using your two personal cards (hole cards) and the five community cards on the table. A good poker player can be very profitable if they know how to read the other players’ body language, especially their tells.
The origin of the name “poker” is disputed, with some scholars arguing it derives from the French poque, or from the German pochen (‘to knock’). It is closely related to the Renaissance game of as nas and the English game brag, which introduced the concept of bluffing. Regardless of its exact history, poker is now considered to be a game of skill and not just chance. The ability to make good decisions is a vital skill in poker, as well as the confidence to take risks.