Poker is a card game in which players compete against each other to assemble the best five-card hand. Each player places an initial amount of money into the pot before being dealt cards (this is called making a bet). The object of the game is to win the entire pot – all bets placed at each round of betting – by having the highest-ranking hand when the final card is revealed (called the “river”). Depending on the rules of the particular game, some or all players may have to pay into the pot a forced bet — sometimes known as an ante, blind, or bring-in bet.

Typically, Poker is played with a standard pack of 52 cards (although some variant games use multiple packs or add special jokers). Cards are ranked in descending order from high to low: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5. Two cards of the same rank form a pair; three of a kind forms a straight; and four of a kind forms a flush. A poker hand may also contain wild cards, which have no fixed rank but can take on the value of any suit.

The earliest references to poker in the literature of card games date to the 16th century, although its modern form closely resembles a number of earlier vying games, including Belle (French, 16th – 18th centuries), Flux & Trente-un (17th – 18th centuries), Post & Pair (18th – present), and Brag (19th – present). It soon spread across Europe and North America, where variations of the game were developed, such as draw poker and stud poker.