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A Beginner’s Guide to Poker

Poker is a card game played by two or more people. Each player has chips to bet with and they are dealt two cards (referred to as their hand). There are five community cards in the center of the table. The aim is to make a winning 5 card “hand” using the combination of your own two cards and the community cards.

Each player must place an ante to the pot before betting begins. Then each player can discard up to three of their cards and take new ones from the deck. Once the cards have been re-shuffled, another round of betting begins and the best hands are revealed.

The highest poker hand is a royal flush, which is four matching cards of the same rank and all in the same suit. The next highest is a straight, which is five consecutive cards of the same suit. A full house is three matching cards of one rank and two matching cards of another. And a pair is two distinct cards of the same rank. The high card breaks ties.

Poker is a great game for social interaction, but there are a lot of rules and strategies to keep track of. You’ll need to know how to read your opponents, understand how they think and react during the game and have top-notch writing skills to describe the action and by-play.