Poker is a card game where players place bets to see who has the best hand. It is a game of chance, but can also be skillful and strategic. The game is played using chips that are numbered and come in a variety of colors, each representing different values. The dealer assigns each player a value of chips before the game begins. In most games, a white chip is worth one minimum ante or bet; a red is worth five whites, and blues are usually worth two, four, or five whites.
A high hand is made up of 3 matching cards of any rank, and a flush contains 5 consecutively ranked cards. A straight is a hand consisting of 5 cards in order but from more than one suit, while a pair consists of 2 matching cards of any rank and another unmatched card. A bug, or wild card, can be used to make certain types of hands but doesn’t count as a part of any other hand.
During the betting rounds, each player has the option to call a bet by placing the same number of chips into the pot as the person to their left; raise their own bet, which means increasing it by an amount of money; or drop the hand (fold). A player who drops must discard their cards and leave the table, and cannot return until the next deal. In addition, all players must buy in with the same number of chips.