Poker is a card game of incomplete information where players bet chips (representing money) to compete for the highest poker hand. Each player has two cards and five community cards, which are dealt in rounds of betting. Each player must place their bets into the pot in order to remain active in the hand; if they don’t want to continue, they can either discard their own cards and draw new ones or simply “drop.”

The rules of poker are the same regardless of whether you’re playing cash or tournament play. However, the skill element is much more important in cash games than in tournament play. This is because you have to be able to read the other players at the table and adjust your strategy accordingly.

In addition to reading the other players, it’s important to know the types of hands that can be made in the game. For example, a full house is three matching cards of one rank and two matching cards of another rank. A straight is five consecutive cards of the same suit. And a pair is two cards of the same rank and two unmatched cards.

As you play more poker, you’ll learn that the order of play changes with every hand. The first player to the left of the dealer chip acts first in every betting interval, followed by each player clockwise until they’ve all called a bet. In some instances, players will raise a bet more than once in a betting interval; this is called raising the ante.