The Basics of Poker

Whether you are an amateur or a pro, poker is a game of chance and skill. The main goal is to get as many chips as possible from your opponents.

The rules are fairly simple: you have a standard pack of 52 cards. The first player to bet, called the first bettor, gets to see all the cards. He is also the first dealer. He is in charge of shuffleing the cards and offering the shuffled deck to the opponent for cut.

There are many variants on the classic game, with some using a different deck or more cards. Some games have wild cards. A wild card is a card that can take any suit.

Some poker games offer side pots to different players. For example, one player may win the main pot by being the first to make a bet, but another player may win a side pot by having the best hand.

The best hand in poker is often a straight flush, or a straight consisting of five cards of the same suit. Other types of hands include a flush, three of a kind, and four of a kind. However, the best hand is probably the ace high straight flush, also known as the royal flush.

The best poker hand may be any five cards, including two distinct pairs and a fifth card. However, most games limit the maximum bet to something in the neighborhood of twenty cents.