Poker is a card game played by two or more players. The object of the game is to win a pot (a sum of bets) by having the highest poker hand at showdown. The cards are dealt by the dealer, and each player must either call the bet or fold his or her hand. Players may also bluff, betting that they have a strong hand when in fact they do not. In addition, a player may win by raising the stakes and forcing other players to either call or concede.
The game may be played with any number of players, but the ideal is six or more. There are many variants of the game, but almost all of them share certain fundamentals. A typical game consists of a series of betting intervals, and each player must place in the pot an amount of chips (representing money, for which poker is nearly always played) at least equal to the total contribution made by the player to his or her immediate left.
A poker hand must consist of five cards and include at least one pair (two distinct cards). Two distinct pairs beat three of a kind; a straight beats four of a kind; a flush beats a full house; and a royal beats any other hand. A joker, the wild card, counts as a fifth ace or to complete a flush, a straight, or certain other types of poker hands.
