Poker is a card game in which players compete for an amount of money or chips contributed by the players themselves (the pot). The skill of the game lies in minimizing losses with poor hands and maximizing winnings with good ones. Different forms of poker have slightly different rules, but all involve one or more betting intervals.

The game originated in the early 20th century and gained popularity after the publication of Doyle Brunson’s influential strategy book, Super/System. Over the past decade, poker tournaments have grown in popularity worldwide. As the game has become more of an international endeavor, there has been increased interest in creating a universal set of rules. A group known as the Poker Tournament Directors Association (Poker TDA) has been working to standardize the rules of poker worldwide.

In some forms of the game, each player puts an initial contribution, called an ante, into the pot before the cards are dealt. This fund, sometimes referred to as the kitty, is used for things like buying new decks of cards and paying for food and drinks. Any chips left in the kitty when the poker game ends are divided equally among the players who remain in the hand.

When a player acts out of turn, the dealer must not give them an unfair advantage by giving them information that they should have only received if they were still in the hand. This includes peeking at another player’s cards, which is considered bad gamesmanship, although it is not against the rules. Players are entitled to a reasonable estimation of their opponents’ chip stacks when it is their turn to act; requesting a precise count is at the player’s risk and may result in a ruling that does not reflect his or her intended action. Visible, countable chip stacks greatly improve counting accuracy.