Poker is a card game that involves skill, strategy, and chance. Players place chips (representing money) into a pot based on the order of their cards and then bet on the outcome of the hand. Each player can win a hand by having the best cards, or by bluffing and intimidating opponents into conceding. Poker is one of the most popular card games in the world.

There are countless poker variants, but most share certain key aspects. Each hand is dealt five cards, and a winning poker hand contains the highest-ranking combination of cards. The value of each card is in inverse proportion to its mathematical frequency: the rarer the card, the higher the rank. Players may also bluff, betting that they have the highest hand when they don’t. This is often called “raising,” and it has a large effect on the game’s dynamics.

A poker game typically involves six to 14 players. Each player places his or her chips into a pot, which is won by the player with the best hand at showdown. During each betting interval, one player—designated by the rules of the specific poker variant being played—makes a bet. Then, each player to his or her left may either call that bet by placing the same number of chips into the pot, or raise it by increasing the amount of chips placed in the pot.

Many of the rules governing Poker are based on a combination of probability, psychology, and game theory. In addition to a basic understanding of poker’s mechanics, professional poker players are adept at extracting information from multiple channels—including in-person cues like eye contact and body language—and integrating it into their strategies both to exploit opponents and protect themselves against them.