Poker is a card game that requires a lot of strategy, mathematics and psychology. While some of the bets are forced, most of the money that is placed in the pot is voluntarily by players who either believe the bet has a positive expected value or are trying to bluff other players for various reasons.
The game begins with each player being dealt two cards face down (hidden from the other players). There is then a betting phase, which starts with the player to the left of the button. The player to the left of the button must either call the current bet, or raise it by at least double its amount (raise). If no one calls the raise, then the player can fold his/her cards and not participate in that round of play.
Once everyone has acted on their turn, the next round begins with three cards being dealt face up in the center of the table. These are called the community cards and they can be used by each player to build a five-card poker hand. Any hand that ranks higher than a lower hand wins the round. For example, a full house beats a straight, and an ace beats any two of a kind.
There is a final round of betting where the player with the best five-card poker hand wins all of the money that has been put down as buy-in at the table. There are sometimes ties where multiple players have the same best 5-card hand, in which case the pot is divided evenly amongst those players.
