Poker is a card game in which players place bets with the object of winning the pot, the sum of all bets placed during a hand. A player’s hands are revealed after the betting and the best hand wins the pot. Players may raise or call each other’s bets. They can also fold, forfeiting their rights to the accumulated pot. There are many variants of poker, but most involve betting rounds in which the players reveal their cards. There are four kinds of poker hands: a straight, a flush, a three-of-a-kind, or a full house.

A fixed amount, known as the small blind & large blind, are posted by the two players to the left of the dealer before the cards are dealt. A round of betting then takes place based on the assumption that each player has an optimal poker hand.

After the betting rounds, the players reveal their cards and evaluate their hands. The winner is declared when all players but one have folded. If more than one player remains, a showdown takes place. In a showdown, the cards are revealed and the player with the highest poker hand wins.

The strategy used to win poker involves deception and psychology. Bluffing is a form of deception whereby a player bets strongly on a weak hand in order to induce opponents with superior hands to call his bet. There is also slow-playing, in which a player holds a strong hand but checks in the hope of improving it with a later bet.