Poker is a card game that can be played by two or more players. The game requires skill in minimizing losses with poor hands and increasing winnings with good ones. It also requires bluffing.

Each player is dealt five cards. He or she may throw away some of these cards and take (draw) new ones in order to form a hand. Then the players reveal their hands and make bets. The winner is the person who has the best hand. There are several different kinds of Poker, but they all have a few things in common. The first one is that the game is almost always played with poker chips. Each player buys in for a certain amount of chips. Typically, the lowest-valued chip is white; each color is worth a different amount of money. For example, a white chip is worth one or more antes; a blue chip is usually worth 10 or more whites; and a red chip is often worth five or more whites.

Before the cards are dealt, a special fund called the “kitty” is created. Usually, each player contributes one low-denomination chip to the kitty for every time they raise a bet. This fund pays for new decks of cards and food and drinks. In addition, the players can make special rules, called house rules, that suit their particular preferences and experiences.