Poker is a card game played between two or more players and governed by a set of rules. The game usually involves betting between rounds of dealing cards. The aim is to win the pot, or the sum of all bets made by players. Players may also choose to bluff, betting that they have a superior hand when they do not. Players who call bets must place chips into the pot equal to or higher than the amount raised by the player before them.

There are many different variations of the game, but all involve a standard 52-card pack with four suits (spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs). Some games allow jokers to be used as wild cards. Each poker hand contains five cards and the highest one wins.

It is a good idea to read as much as possible about the game, including books such as David Sklansky’s The Theory of Poker. However, to improve you need to actually play the game. This includes learning to read your opponents, paying attention to their subtle physical poker tells and analyzing how they play. You should also learn when to fold and how to raise bets with strong value hands and call raises with weaker ones.

Depending on the length and intensity of the game, some people believe that skill dominates chance in poker. This is because the effect of chance diminishes with the number of hands and eventually cancels out over the long run.