Official poker is a card game played by a group of players with chips in hand. Each player antes an amount to get their cards and then bets into the middle of the table, which is called the pot. When the betting round ends, whoever has the best hand wins all the chips that were bet in that round. Poker is often a game of chance, but skill and bluffing can also play important roles.
A game of poker can be played in a variety of ways, from simple games like draw poker to complicated variants such as Texas hold’em. Each variation has a different set of rules, though they all share some common features. The game is traditionally played from a standard pack of 52 cards (although some games use multiple packs or add one or two jokers). Cards are ranked according to their suit and rank (Ace, King, Queen, Jack, etc), with each suit being a different rank than the others.
In a normal game, each player has two personal cards that are dealt face down and then five community cards are dealt in stages (the flop, the turn, and the river). Each player attempts to make the best possible poker hand with their two hole cards and the community cards.
A special dealer, called the banker, is responsible for keeping track of the stock of chips in the game. The banker must be impartial in dealing with all transactions and should not allow any player to buy or sell chips to or from another player.