Poker is a game of cards, where players place chips in a pot based on the relative strength of their hands. The player with the best hand wins the pot, which represents all the money that was put down as buy-in at the table. In many cases, there will be a tie for the best hand. In this case, the players who hold the tied hands will share the pot.
The game starts with 2 mandatory bets called blinds placed into the pot by the players to the left of the dealer. The dealer then deals each player 5 cards. There is then a round of betting based on these cards. The highest 5 card hand wins the pot. The highest 5 card hand can be made up of any combination of 3 matching cards of one rank, 4 matching cards of another rank, and 2 unmatched cards (known as a pair).
A hand that contains no matches or is all spades or all hearts is a straight. A flush contains any 5 consecutive cards of the same suit. A three of a kind is made up of 3 cards of the same rank, and a pair is two matching cards of one rank, and an unmatched card.
A good poker player is always thinking about the odds of their hand, and analyzing the relative strength of the other players’ hands. They also make calculated decisions about when to raise or fold based on their odds of winning. This is why the game is considered a game of skill. Even if a player gets lucky, variance will catch up to them eventually, and they will lose more than they can afford.