Poker is a card game of chance and strategy. While a good portion of any individual hand is influenced by luck, over the long run players choose their actions on the basis of probability, psychology, and game theory.
Depending on the rules of the specific variant being played, each player must make at least a minimum bet (the amount varies by game) before the cards are dealt. Then, at each addition to the community cards (known as the flop, turn, and river), a round of betting begins, with the player who made the blind placing their chips into the pot in order of their choosing.
After the flop, each player must decide whether to continue raising their bets on the strength of their own hands or to fold. A player may also bluff, which is a tactic in which a player pretends to have a strong hand in the hope that they can scare away other players from putting their money into the pot.
A strong poker hand consists of the best combination of five cards in the player’s possession, including a pair (two matching cards), three of a kind (three cards of the same number/picture), four of a kind, and a full house (three of a kind and two pairs). Ties are broken by rank, with higher ranks winning; for example, a royal flush beats a straight. In addition, some games allow players to exchange their own cards with the cards in the pot for a better one.