Poker is a card game played by two or more players for several rounds. Players place an amount of money into a pot for each betting round. They are dealt cards from a standard 52-card deck, and make bets based on the strength of their hands. The player with the best hand at the end of the betting rounds wins the pot.

A player may raise or call a bet made by the player to their left. They may also fold, which means they put no chips into the pot and discard their cards. Players may also use information about the opponents’ hands to strategically misinform each other. For example, a player may signal weak hands by betting small, hoping to induce players with stronger hands to make large bets and fold before the showdown.

There are several different kinds of poker hands, ranging from the highest pair to a royal flush. Typically, the higher the pair, the better the hand. Ties are broken by the highest unmatched card or by secondary pairs (in a full house, for example).

Many variants of poker have rules for how to deal the cards and how much to bet in each round. Often there is a dealer, which can be either a player or a non-player; the dealer is designated by a marker—a button or plastic disk—that is passed clockwise after each round. In some games, the dealer is rotated after each round to ensure that all players receive a chance to serve as dealer.