Poker is a card game where the twin elements of chance and skill come into play. While a significant amount of luck is required to win any given hand, over time the application of skill can nearly eliminate variance.
A standard pack contains 52 cards. Some variant games use multiple packs or add special cards called Jokers. In most poker hands the highest rank wins. Aces are high, kings are low, and queens and jacks are in between. The other ranks of the cards are spades, hearts, and diamonds. In some games, the joker counts as a fifth ace and sometimes the game will specify that certain cards are wild (dueces, one-eyes, etc).
There is usually a dealer for each round of poker, who is responsible for shuffling the deck and dealing the cards. In some cases the dealer will be a non-player, but there are also games where the players take turns being the dealer for each round of play. The dealer is designated by a special chip which is passed around the table with each new deal.
The money that all players bet in any given round is called the pot. The winner of a round takes the entire contents of the pot. Depending on the game, there may be rules for sharing the pot in the event of a tie.
A player that has the best 5-card poker hand at the end of the final betting round is the winner of the pot. However, a player can win the pot before this by folding before the last betting round.
