Poker is a card game in which players place bets with chips (representing money) before being dealt cards. The aim is to make a high hand of five cards, using your two personal cards and the five community cards on the table. The highest ranking hand wins the pot, or the sum of all bets placed during a deal.

There are many different poker variants, but they all share the same basic principles. It’s important to learn and understand these rules in order to play the game. You’ll also want to know how to read your opponents in order to bluff and win bets.

When playing Poker, the players may establish a special fund called a “kitty” to cover expenses such as new decks of cards and drinks. Each player contributes one low-denomination chip to the kitty when it is his turn to bet. When a player leaves a Poker game before it is finished, he forfeits any chips that were part of the kitty.

A standard 52-card pack, with or without one or two jokers, is used in most Poker games. It is often shuffled twice before each deal in order to speed up the game. Some people even cut the deck more than once in order to be sure that the cards are well mixed.