Poker is a card game that is played by two or more players. It is a game of chance that has become increasingly popular due to television broadcasts of major poker tournaments and to the Internet, where it is now possible for anyone with access to a computer to play the game with people from all over the world.
Each player starts with two cards, known as hole cards. Then there is a betting round, and then five community cards are dealt face up in stages, three at a time, called the flop, followed by another card, called the turn, and then a final card, called the river. The player who has the best 5-card hand wins all of the money in the pot.
There are many different poker games, but they all have the same basic rules. Each player buys in for a certain number of chips, and each chip has a particular value (e.g. a white chip is worth one point, while a red chip is worth five points). The game ends when a player has won all of the chips that were bought in.
Expert players make a lot of money because they know how to read other players and remain unpredictable. They also use bluffing to maximise their winnings and minimise their losses on losing hands. This principle is often referred to as MinMax (Minimum Losses Maximise Wins). In order to achieve this, players must make the most of their good hands and bluff when necessary.