Poker is one of the most popular card games in the world. It is played in casinos, community card rooms, and at home poker tables. There are a number of different variants and rules, but the core principle is that the player with the best hand wins the pot.

Players begin the game with chips that represent money and they must use those chips to make bets in the pot. These bets can be made by “calling” a previous bet (putting the same number of chips in the pot as the previous player); “raising” (putting more than enough chips in the pot to call the previous bet, but fewer than the total required for the next player to call); or “folding” (“dropping”), which means that the player puts no chips in the pot and discards their hand.

There are four types of hands in poker: pairs, flushes, straights and full houses. Each type of hand has a different ranking and rules for breaking ties.

Pairs Rank: Highest cards win when two or more people have the same pair; lower card wins when nobody has a pair. The highest pair of cards in a set is the winner; the second-highest pair of cards in a set is the higher; and the lowest card in a set is the lower.

Three-of-a-kind Rank: If there are two or more people with three-of-a-kind, the first two cards in the set are used to determine the winner; the third-highest card in the set is used to determine the winner.

Four-of-a-kind Rank: In a hand of four cards of the same rank, the highest card is used to determine the winner. If there are two or more hands with four of a kind, the highest card outside the four of a kind is used to break ties; if there are none, the lowest card in the set is used to determine the highest hand.

Flush Rank: If there are two or more hands with a flush, the highest card in each flush is used to determine the winner. If there is a tie, the highest card outside of each flush is used to determine the winner.

Straight Rank: If there are two or more straights, the highest card in each hand is used to determine the winner. If there be no ties, the highest card in each hand is used.

Full House Rank: If there are two or more full houses, the highest card in each hand is used; if there be no ties, the highest card outside of each full house is used to determine the winner.

The Straight Rank of a hand is determined by the number of cards in the hand that are in the same suit, from Ace through Five. The hand that contains the most cards of each suit is considered to be the strongest hand in the hand.

Most games of poker have a fixed limit for how much a player can bet or raise in any given betting interval. In some games, this limit is set by the dealer at the start of the hand. In other games, the limit is set by all the players before the deal begins.