Poker is a card game in which each player has “chips” (representing money) to bet with. Each person is dealt two cards, and the aim is to make the best five-card hand possible using these and the community cards. The highest hand wins. The players’ hands are shown in turn, and ties are broken by the High Card rule: any card outside of a pair, three of a kind, or four of a kind breaks the tie.

A player may call, raise or fold a bet. Depending on the rules of the game, a player may also use a strategy of bluffing other players. This involves studying their body language for tells – unconscious habits that reveal information about a player’s hand.

In a cash game, each player must first ante something to the pot. Then they are dealt a set of cards. The player to the left of the button has the right to deal and bet first, but this position rotates clockwise after each hand.

A player wishing to stay in the pot must make his bet equal to or higher than the total staked by the last player, and may even raise it further if he chooses to. If he is unwilling to do this, he must fold. This equalization method is an important part of the game’s betting rules. A great deal of research has been done into the history and varieties of Poker, and the definitive rules first appeared in 1904. The earliest contemporary reference appears in 1836 in J. Hildreth’s Dragoon Campaigns to the Rocky Mountains, but two slightly later publications independently show that it had become widespread by 1829.