How to Play Poker

Poker is a card game in which players have chips (representing money) to bet with. A player’s goal is to form a five card “hand” from their own two cards and the community cards dealt in a single round of betting. If the player’s hand is superior to the others, they win the pot. Players may also bluff, betting that they have the best hand and hoping other players call them and concede defeat.

There are a number of different ways to play Poker, but the most common involves dealing five cards to each player and having one or more betting rounds in which each player can either raise their bet or fold. In the final betting phase, players reveal their hands and the player with the highest hand wins the pot.

At the start of each betting round, the players must ante an amount of chips into the pot to begin the round. The amount of the ante varies by game, but our games are typically a nickel.

During the course of the hand, the players may establish a special fund, or “kitty,” to pay for things like new decks of cards and food. The kitty is built by “cutting” one low-denomination chip from each pot in which there is more than one raise. Any chips left in the kitty when the game ends are divided equally among the players who are still playing. This is in contrast to other card games, where any chips remaining in the kitty when the game ends belong to a particular player.