Poker is a card game played by two or more players with chips that they place in the pot to make bets. The game requires skill to minimize losses with poor hands and maximize winnings with good ones. The most popular variation of the game is Texas Hold’em, but there are many others.

Each player is dealt 2 cards and has the opportunity to make a hand using those cards and five community cards. The highest “hand” wins the pot. During each betting interval, a player may bet by raising the amount of chips in the pot by an agreed-upon increment. This raise may be doubled in certain situations, such as when one or more of the opponent’s exposed cards are pairs.

Before any cards are dealt, the person to the left of the dealer puts in an initial contribution (called a “blind”) of one or more chips into the pot. This player is known as the button, and his or her turn to deal and bet passes clockwise after each hand.

A player must also know how to read the other players at a table, particularly their tells. A tell is an unconscious habit or tic that reveals information about the player’s hand to other players. This can include anything from a change in posture to an expression. Observing these habits can help the player identify conservative players who tend to fold early and aggressive players who bet high in an effort to scare others into folding.