Poker is a card game played between two or more players over a series of rounds. The person with the best five-card poker hand wins the pot (or the game). It can be played in many different variants but they all share some fundamentals. The main goal is to make the best poker hand by betting and raising when you have faith in your cards. You can also fold if you think you don’t have a good enough hand or you’re out of money to stay in the game.

Each player starts by purchasing a number of poker chips that they use to place bets with. There are usually 200 chips in a deck of poker cards, with each white chip worth one ante or bet amount and each red chip worth ten whites. Each player’s position at the table is also important as this can affect their betting strategy. If the action comes to you first, this is known as Early Position; if it goes to you last, this is Late Position.

You can say “call” or “raise” to add more money to the betting pool after the last player has acted. When you raise, the other players must either call your new bet or fold. You should always try to avoid making a bet that is less than your opponents’ expected value. This can be difficult to master, but if you practice and observe experienced players, you’ll build a natural intuition for things like frequencies and EV estimation.