A game in which players wager real money on individual hands in a series of betting rounds. Poker has many variants and uses a variety of cards in the deck. The most common games include draw poker, Texas hold ’em, and the community card game pai gow. Poker games are also played on video poker machines, which use the basic rules of poker to determine payouts.

Poker has become an international game, and there is a growing interest in developing a standard set of rules to avoid misunderstandings and conflicts between players. The Professional Tournament Directors Association (Poker TDA) has developed a set of rules that is widely used in live and online poker tournaments.

In most tournament games, one player acts as dealer. This position is called the button, and it rotates clockwise after every hand. Players to the left of the button must make forced bets before the deal (the ante and/or the blind). Then, the dealer shuffles the cards and deals each player two cards face down. Players can then raise or fold their bets according to the game’s rules.

When raising bets, players must do so by a fixed amount. This is usually the size of the pot, but some games may use a different system. For example, some games use a “pot limit” rule in which a player can raise as much as the total pot while other games use a “fixed limit” rule in which players must bet the same amount each time.