Poker is a card game of chance that requires some psychology and skill (though there is more skill involved in betting than without it). There are many variations of the game, but they all follow the same basic rules.

The game is played from a standard 52-card pack (though some variant games may use more than one deck, or add wild cards). The cards are ranked from high to low: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2. Each player has a stake that he/she must place into the pot before betting can begin. He/she can also choose to call a bet and/or raise it. The highest hand wins the pot.

A player can only make a winning hand from five cards. There are several different combinations of hands, but the most common is a straight flush. This is made of five consecutive cards of the same suit, for example 5-4-3-8-9.

There are also a number of other types of hand, such as three of a kind, two pair and four of a kind. Each of these hands has a certain rank, and the highest of these is called a Royal Flush.

Articles on poker history often mention a wide variety of earlier vying games, not all of which have much bearing on the current game. These include: Primiera (Italian, 16th – 17th centuries), Gilet under various spellings (French, 16th – 18th centuries), Brag (18th century to present) and Bouillotte (late 18th – early 19th centuries). Some of these were based on other European card games such as Poque.