Poker is a card game that involves betting between players who have two cards each. The game is played in a number of different ways, each designed to achieve the same outcome: winning the pot.
A player must contribute a fixed amount of money to the pot in order to play. This is called the ante. In poker this is done by putting chips in the pot that are representing money (called a bet). A player may also raise or call the bet of another player for strategic reasons.
The first thing to understand about poker is that the strength of a hand can often be concealed. This is because of how the bets in a poker hand are structured. The best way to hide your hand is to have a hand that doesn’t win very often. For example, let’s say you have pocket fives and the flop is A-2-6. This flop gives a lot of people trips and makes it very hard to conceal your hand.
In addition to hiding the strength of your hand, playing good position is very important. This is because the player in position before the dealer has more information about what other players are holding than the players before him. This allows them to make more accurate bluffs than the players in late position. Having more information can even allow you to steal a pot by making a bet when your opponents think you are holding a bad hand.