Poker is a card game with many variants. In general, players are dealt two cards each and then five community cards are dealt. The goal is to make a winning hand using your own two cards plus the community cards. The highest hand is a royal flush, which consists of four matching cards of the same rank in one suit. The second highest hand is a straight, which contains five consecutive cards of the same rank in a single suit. The third highest hand is a full house, which consists of three matching cards of one rank and two matching cards of another rank. The lowest hand is a high card, which consists of two unmatched cards of the same rank.
During each betting round, a player may make a bet by putting chips into the pot in the amount that he or she believes to be a reasonable amount to call. If all opponents choose to call the bet, the player receives the pot and does not show his or her cards. This is a form of bluffing, and it is the primary feature that distinguishes poker from other vying games.
Players can also reveal their hands in some way during the betting process, and players who do so are said to “drop.” The dropping player surrenders his or her rights in the original pot to any later bettor that chooses to call that bet. If a player does not want to compete for the original pot, he can drop out of it by putting no more chips into it or by discarding his or her hand.