Poker is a card game that can be played with a single deck of cards or with multiple decks of cards. Players have betting intervals during each deal to minimize their losses and increase their winnings when they have good hands. Some variations have an ante or minimum bet that players must place before the game begins.

Poker is played with any number of players, but the optimal number is six to eight players. The sum of all players’ bets from a single deal is called the “pot.” The winner is the person who has the highest hand, or makes the highest bet and no other player calls. If two players have two identical pairs, they tie and split the pot. In high-card poker, the highest card in the deck is called the kicker. In other hands, the highest card in the deck is called the “high card.”

While poker is a game of chance, there are also elements of skill and psychology involved. A basic primer on poker rules can be useful for a beginning player. If you’re interested in learning more, you can read a book on poker or play poker in a group. Although it’s more expensive to play poker with a group than to buy a book, it’s worth it for the experience.

In most games, the game is played with poker chips, and a minimum of 200 chips is recommended for a seven-player game. The lowest-value chip is the white chip. A red chip is worth five whites, a blue chip is worth ten or twenty whites, and a dark-colored chip is worth two, four, or five reds. Players “buy in” to a game by purchasing chips that have a value of five or higher.