Poker is a card game in which the players compete to form the best hand. The highest-ranking hand wins the pot, which is made up of all of the players’ bets during a deal.
Rules & Strategy
In most forms of poker, the dealer shuffles and deals cards to each player in turn. This is followed by a series of betting rounds.
A player’s hand is a combination of their personal cards and the cards in the community deck (the deck that all other players are holding). The best hand is a complete hand, meaning that it contains a full set of five cards.
Standard poker hands rank from highest to lowest in a sequence that is determined by odds and probability. The highest hand is a royal flush, which contains a 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace of one suit.
The next best hand is a straight flush, which contains five consecutive cards of the same suit.
Another high-ranking hand is a full house, which contains 3 matching cards of the same rank and two matching cards of another rank.
Other hands include straights, which are made up of 5 consecutive cards of the same suit and three-of-a-kinds, which are made up of a pair of matching cards of different ranks.
In hi-lo games, the highest high hand and lowest low hand win half of the pot. The lower hand must have at least five cards below 8 to qualify for the low portion of the pot.