Poker is a card game that involves betting between players with different hands. It is generally considered to be a skill game, with the ability to minimize losses with poor hands and maximize winnings with good ones being the key elements of success.
Depending on the specific game rules, one or more players may be required to make an initial contribution to the pot, usually called an ante or blind bet. The dealer then shuffles the cards, and deals each player a hand, starting with the player to their left. Once all the players have their cards, betting takes place in rounds. During each round, the players can choose to keep their current cards or discard them and draw replacements from the deck.
In many games, the player with the best poker hand wins the pot. However, the winner of a particular hand can be determined in other ways as well. For instance, some games award the pot to the highest-ranked hand, while others allow the players to split the pot into different side pots based on how their hands rank.
The ability to bluff is another important aspect of the game. In general, a bluff consists of attempting to make the other players believe that you have a better hand than you actually do. This can be done by making big bets and hoping that the other players will call you, or it can be achieved by simply pretending to have a bad hand so that the other players will fold.