Poker is a card game in which players place bets and then reveal their cards. The player with the best hand wins a round. The game has many variants. Most forms involve a minimum of 6 players and a maximum of 14 players. Some include a dealer, who shuffles the deck and deals each player a single card face-down. Often, a non-player takes the role of dealer each round, although some games use a button (often a plastic disk) to indicate who is the dealer.
The betting interval ends when no player calls a bet or folds, or when all remaining players have the same number of chips in front of them. A player may also make a bet that is all-in, meaning he or she puts all his or her remaining chips into the pot. There are special rules for this bet, which depend on the game and situation.
When a duplicate card on the board devalues a player’s hand, that player is said to have been “counterfeited.” For example, if you have a pair of 6’s and a 7 shows on the flop, your hand is no longer the best one at the table.
The rank of poker hands is determined by their odds (probability). Ties are broken by the highest unmatched cards, or the higher of two pairs. If the highest unmatched cards are of different suits, then the suit ranking is used to break the tie.
