Poker is a card game involving betting, where players try to win the pot (the total amount of bets) by having the highest hand. The value of a poker hand is in inverse proportion to its frequency, so that rarer hands rank higher than common ones. Players may also bluff, making bets that they do not hold the best cards in order to induce other players to call them and therefore increase their winnings.
In most forms of poker, players compete for a pot of money by placing bets in the center of the table. These bets must be made with chips, which are worth a certain amount (e.g., a white chip is worth one point, and each color has its own value). Players may also raise or call bets placed by other players for strategic reasons. In addition, the game involves chance and psychology; players’ actions in any given hand are determined by their beliefs about other players and their opponents’ actions.
The game is a card-based game that can be played with two to 14 players. Each player is dealt five cards. The highest-ranking poker hand wins the pot; if more than one hand has five of a kind, then the highest-ranking pair wins (e.g., five aces beats five kings). If no one has a high pair or better, then the highest single card wins the tie. This is called the high card rule.