Poker is a card game played by a group of people sitting around a table. The object of the game is to have the highest-ranked hand when all the betting rounds are over. The winning player earns all the money that was bet during that hand. There are many different forms of Poker, but most involve betting in rounds until one player has the best five-card hand. The amount won depends on how much the player invested in the pot.

Players pay a small amount to enter the game (the exact amount varies by game). The dealer then shuffles the cards and cuts them. Each player is dealt 2 hole cards and the first round of betting begins. Then, depending on the variant of Poker being played, the rest of the cards are revealed in stages: three cards called the flop, another single card known as the turn, and finally a final card called the river.

After the flop, the players may choose to call, raise or fold. Raising a bet means that the player is willing to put in more chips than the previous player. Players can also check, which means they don’t want to raise and will wait for their turn to act again.

It is important to study your opponents’ betting patterns and watch for tells – unconscious habits that give away information about the strength of a hand. Often, these tells are based on physical appearance or actions rather than verbal communication.