Poker is a game in which players make bets with chips representing money. The player with the highest ranked hand wins the pot. A player may also win a hand by betting so much that other players will drop out of the pot. Usually, the first player to bet places a minimum amount of chips into the pot (representing money) and every subsequent player must match or exceed this amount. This money is known as the ante and the blinds. The players may also put additional chips into the pot, called bring-ins, before the cards are dealt.

Each player is dealt 2 hole cards, and a round of betting begins. The player to the left of the dealer makes the first bet. In some variants, one or more additional bets may be made, depending on the rules of the specific game.

There are many different types of poker hands. The most common include the full house, which contains 3 matching cards of the same rank, and the straight, which contains 5 cards that are consecutive in rank but from more than one suit. In addition, a flush contains five cards of the same suit, and two pairs contain 2 matching cards of different ranks.

If a player has a good bluffing ability, they can often win the pot even when they have a bad hand. This is because the other players will not call a large bet on a hand that they are unlikely to win. In some cases, a player will place all of their remaining chips into the pot in a single bet, which is known as going all-in.