Poker is a card game that is played with various numbers of players. A typical game has six to eight players. Each player makes bets into a “pot” in the center of the table. A player who holds the best poker hand can win the pot. Another way to win the pot is to make a bet that no other player calls.

To play the game, each player must have a minimum hand in order to make a bet. Often, this hand is a pair of jacks. When a player has a minimum hand, he must make the first bet in the round. Typically, this player is called the “active player”.

The best poker hand is a hand of two or more different pairs of cards. A higher pair wins. In ties, the high card breaks the tie. A flush is when all five cards of the same suit are present in the same hand. If more than one player has a high hand of the same suit, the hand with the highest five cards wins.

Poker is a game of chance that gains skill when combined with betting and psychology. There are no official Olympic games for poker, but the sport has been featured on ESPN for years. The World Series of Poker is one of the highest-paid sporting events in the world, and ranked 6th in the Highest Paid Sporting Events list in 2011.