Poker is a card game in which players compete to form the best five-card hand. A player’s hand has a value in inverse proportion to its mathematical frequency; the more unusual a hand is, the higher its value. Players may bet on their hand’s strength and win by bluffing, or they may fold and lose the chance to compete for the pot.
In a standard game of poker, the players must first ante (the amount varies by game variant) and then be dealt two cards each. The players then place bets into the pot, and whoever has the best five-card hand wins all of the money that was put down as buy-in at the table. If a player chooses to reveal their cards before betting has finished, they are said to “drop” or “fold.”
Each round of poker has one player who has dealer responsibilities, usually indicated by a dealer chip, though some games assign dealer duties to non-players. The dealer chip is passed clockwise around the table after each round of betting. The player to the dealer’s left acts first during the betting phase, although there are some exceptions to this rule.