Poker is a card game that involves betting and bluffing. The outcome of a hand depends primarily on chance, but players can increase their expected value by choosing their actions strategically based on probability and psychology.

To play poker, you will need a deck of cards and poker chips. The most common poker chips are white, but they can be any color or denomination. Each chip is worth one unit of money, for example, a white chip is usually worth a dollar and a red chip is worth five dollars. Players place their chips in a pot at the beginning of each hand and the player with the highest hand wins the pot.

There are three stages of a poker hand, the first is called the flop and it consists of 3 community cards being dealt face up. After the flop, there is a round of betting, starting with the player on the left of the dealer.

The next stage of a poker hand is the river and it consists of the final community card being dealt face up. After the river, there is another round of betting and the player with the highest poker hand wins. There are also side pots if one or more players go all in during the last betting round. These side pots are separate from the main pot and each all-in player only has a chance to win the amount of the side pot they contributed.