Poker is a card game that involves betting between players and the dealer. The game has countless variants, but all involve players attempting to win the pot – the aggregate of bets in a single hand.

The cards dealt to each player in a poker game form a five-card hand. The value of a poker hand is in inverse proportion to its mathematical frequency – the rarer the combination, the higher the hand rank. Players may try to maximise winning hands and minimise losses by raising their bets when they have inferior ones, or bluffing against opponents who do not call their raises.

If you do not have a strong enough starting hand, or if your current hand is likely to lose against the other players’ hands, then you can choose to ‘fold’ and forfeit the pot. You can also choose to ‘call’ if you wish to match the current bet amount, or even raise it if you have a good reason to think that other players will fold their cards and give up on their current hand.

Another way to make a poker game more interesting is to focus on the reactions of players to the cards they are dealt. This by-play can add a great deal to a scene and help to bring out the plot conflict that is at the heart of every good story.