Poker is a card game in which players place bets on their own or others’ hands. The winner takes the pot (i.e., the sum of all bets placed). The game can have as few as two or more than seven players. There are countless variants of poker, but most involve betting on a hand of five cards.

A poker game may also use wild cards or jokers. In these cases, a poker hand must contain four of the same rank and one unmatched card. The highest pair wins, then the second highest pair and so on. The highest unmatched card breaks ties.

In some games, the ace may optionally be treated as the lowest card, making a straight 7-5-4-3-2 of two or more suits the best possible hand. The dealer deals each player a number of cards, face up or face down depending on the variant of poker being played. When a player’s turn to bet comes, they can choose whether to call the current bet or raise it.

Players can use bluffing to win a pot by betting that they have the best hand when in reality they do not. However, this is considered bad etiquette and some techniques are considered to be “cheating.” These include trying to see the opponent’s hole cards, hiding chips while raising a bet, and counting or moving your chips to make it look like you have a smaller stack to call a bet.