Poker is a card game in which players place bets into a pot based on the strength of their hands. While the outcome of any single hand may involve considerable luck, the long-run expectations of poker players are determined by actions they take on the basis of probability, psychology, and game theory.

The cards are dealt clockwise around the table, and betting proceeds in turn. When it is a player’s turn to act, they can raise the bet by saying “raise.” The other players must call this raise or fold their cards. A player can also choose to check, which means they will not bet during the current round and will pass their turn to the left.

During each round, players may bet that they have a strong poker hand, or they can try to win by bluffing. Bluffing involves betting that you have a strong poker hand when you do not, in order to make other players fold their cards.

The game is typically played with poker chips, which are assigned a value and exchanged for cash by players prior to each hand. Chips can be a variety of colors, and they can have different denominations. Players are usually allowed to bet in increments of one, two, three, four, or five chips. The player who has the highest poker hand at the end of the betting round wins the pot. If no one has a high poker hand, the game ends with a showdown, in which all of the remaining players reveal their hands.