Poker is a card game that involves betting, bluffing, and evaluating other players’ hands. It may be played with anywhere from two to 14 players and is almost always played with chips that represent money. The goal is to win the “pot,” which represents the sum total of bets made during any one deal. A player can win the pot by having the best hand or by making a bet that no other players call.

Unlike most card games, Poker does not have a single set of rules, but there are many different variants of the game. Some variants involve more cards than others, and the game can be played with the joker (or “bug”) included in the standard 53-card pack or removed from it. In most forms of the game, a complete hand is dealt to each player and then bet in a round, with raising and re-raising allowed. At the end of a betting round, the remaining players reveal their cards and evaluate their hands. The player with the highest hand wins the pot.

Although countless strategies exist for winning Poker, the key to success is minimizing losses with poor hands and maximizing winnings with good ones. In addition, expert players learn to extract signal from noise across many channels—including visual and audio cues—and integrate it into their betting and strategy. Their work has implications in fields as diverse as computer science, behavioral economics, and mathematical game theory.