Poker is a card game in which players compete for chips. The number of players in a game varies, but the ideal number is six to eight. The money bets made by each player are summed together to form the pot, which is the value of all the hands in the game. The player with the best poker hand wins the pot.

At the start of a hand, each player is dealt two cards face down. These cards are called the player’s pocket or hole. After dealing cards, players can discard up to three cards and take new ones from the top of the deck. Once the cards are revealed, a betting phase takes place between the newly dealt cards.

Typically, the dealer is not one of the players, and he or she rotates among all players during the game. The dealer button is a white plastic disk that indicates the nominal dealer. When a game has seven or more players, the dealer should have at least 200 chips available. The dealer’s position is important because it will determine the betting order.

In poker, five-card combinations are called poker hands. A winning hand is one that contains the highest five-card combination. The higher the hand, the more chips a player can win. A good hand will contain at least three pairs of cards, but a better hand may contain any combination of five cards.