Poker is a card game played with a deck of cards. Players each have two cards (sometimes referred to as their “hand”) and five community cards, all of which are dealt face up on the table. A player’s goal is to make the best five-card hand with the community cards and their own two cards. The highest ranked hand wins the “pot” or all the chips bet during the hand.

At the start of a hand, all players buy in with a number of poker chips. Usually, a white chip is the unit or lowest value chip worth one dollar; a red chip is worth five whites; and a blue is worth either ten whites or twenty whites.

Once the betting is done, players reveal their hands. If a player has a strong hand, they will try to force others to fold or call their bets so that they can win the pot/all the bets.

As you play more and more poker, you’ll start keeping a file of poker hands to refer to when you want to remember how certain cards are used in a hand. You’ll also be able to look at the tells of other players (holding their hands over their mouths or shaking their heads usually means they have a good hand; staring down at their chips often indicates that a player is trying to bluff). These tells can help you read players better and improve your own bluffing skills.