In Poker, players compete by betting in rounds until a player has the best five-card hand. The game has hundreds of variations, but most of them use a similar format. Each round begins with one or more forced bets, called antes or blind bets. Players must place these chips into the pot before they are dealt cards.

The dealer, who is not a player, shuffles the cards and deals cards to each player in turn. Depending on the variation of the game, some of the cards are face-up and others face-down. The first betting round, or “pre-flop,” usually starts with the player to the right of the dealer.

A player may call a bet, raise it, or fold. In some situations a player may put all of their remaining chips into the pot, an action called going ‘all in’. There are special rules for how this type of bet works, and it can influence the outcome of a round.

In most poker games, players share in the total money won by the winner. This money is usually placed in a “kitty” (a fund that is used to pay for new decks of cards or other expenses). If there are no more than two raises in a betting round, the raiser takes all of the low-denomination chips from the kitty and keeps them. The kitty is then passed to the next player in the current betting phase. Alternatively, the kitty is kept in the hands of each player until the end of the game.