Poker is a card game that involves betting on the strength of your hand. It can be played by two or more players, with or without chips. It is a popular pastime, with many variations of the game.

The cards are shuffled and cut by the dealer, a person who is responsible for dealing the cards to each player. He or she can be a non-player, or the position of dealer may rotate among players after each round of play. The player whose turn it is to place money in the pot starts the betting, called raising. When a player raises, the other players may call or fold, depending on the rules of the particular poker variant.

Players take turns clockwise around the table revealing their hands. The winner of each round takes all the chips in the pot. This may be accomplished with a pair of cards or five, three of a kind, a flush, a straight, or a full house. Some games include a joker, or wild card, which counts as the highest-ranked card in a suit for certain special hands.

It’s important to have a good grasp of the rules of poker in order to write an effective scene involving it. However, it is not necessary to have a detailed knowledge of how the game plays on a larger scale; most readers won’t care about the specifics of what goes on at the table. What matters to readers is the stakes of the scene (who will outwit who) and their reactions to the card draws, bets, checks, reveals, and raises that happen in the process.