Poker is a card game of skill and chance, played between two or more players and involving betting. It has many variants, but all involve a central pot and cards dealt to each player. A good hand at the end of a round is the aim. The players may also put in forced bets called blinds to add incentive to the play.
A basic rule is that each player is to place a bet in turn, beginning with the player to his left. He can “call” the bet, raising it if he wants to do so, or he may “drop,” which means that he puts no chips into the pot and thus forfeits any rights to future betting intervals in that hand.
There is then a second betting interval, followed by the showdown of the best five-card hand. In most games, a player who has been dealt two cards, or hole cards, and has no matching cards to those of any of the other players is able to draw replacements from the undealt portion of the pack.
There are four types of Poker hands, each requiring different combinations of ranks and suits to be made. A full house contains three matching cards of one rank and two matching cards of another rank, a flush contains 5 consecutive cards of the same suit, and a straight contains five successive ranks in more than one suit. In addition, a pair is comprised of 2 matching cards.