Poker is a card game that can be played with any number of players. The game has numerous variants, but all involve betting and bluffing. The game can be played for any stakes that are agreed at the beginning of a hand, although experienced gamblers will sneer at anything less than serious stakes. Tokens to bet with are required, and conventionally these are round chips. Poker chip sets are widely available these days and range in price from very cheap to high quality sets of great value.

Once all players have been dealt 2 cards there is a betting interval that lasts until one player has placed in the pot (representing money, for which poker is almost always played) enough chips to make him or her the only active player. This player is called a “player in the pot” and must either call the previous bet or raise it. If a player raises the previous bet they must also reveal their hand.

In most poker games, the highest valued hand is a straight flush made of five consecutive cards of the same suit. However, players may also have four of a kind or even a full house when the other player folds. In addition, a player can bluff by betting that they have the best hand and hoping that other players will call their bet. Bluffing can be successful if the other players have good tells, which are unconscious habits that reveal information about the players’ cards.