Poker is a card game played by two or more players on a table. It is a game of chance, but the long-run expectations of players are determined by their decisions chosen on the basis of probability, psychology and game theory. There is no forced betting at the start of a hand, and money is placed into the pot only when a player believes that a particular bet has positive expected value or wants to bluff other players for strategic reasons.
At the beginning of a hand, each player puts into the pot a number of chips that is equal to or greater than the amount of the bet made by the player before him. When a player is not interested in continuing the hand, they can choose to “fold,” leaving their cards face down on the table and dropping out of the betting. During the course of betting, a player can say “raise” to add more chips to the bet or simply say “call” in response to a previous raise.
At the end of the hand, the players reveal their cards and the player with the best five-card hand wins the pot. When there is a tie, the winnings are shared. When a player has a high card, this is called a high hand. A pair of cards of the same rank is considered a low hand. Three of a kind is a strong hand. If a player has only one card of the highest rank, this is called a high card singleton.