Poker is a card game that can be played with two or more players. The object is to make the best five-card hand at the end of the betting round. The player who has the highest hand wins all of the money in the pot, which is all the bets that players placed during the round.

There are many different variants of poker, but all of them use cards and chips to place bets during a betting interval. The first player to act places a bet (or more accurately, a number of chips representing money) into the pot, which is then raised or re-raised by each player in turn. Each player must contribute enough chips to the pot to remain in the game, or “active”; in the rare case when a player has no more chips to add, they must fold.

In some cases, a player will put all of his or her remaining chips into the pot, which is called an all-in bet. There are specific rules governing this type of bet, depending on the variant of poker being played.

While there are no guarantees of success, successful poker players learn to extract signal from the noise by analyzing their opponents, both to exploit and to protect themselves. They become adept at assessing the emotional state of their opponents, even when they themselves are feeling tense or frustrated. This allows them to avoid getting distracted by their own feelings, and make more accurate decisions about how to play the game.