The rules of poker are straightforward: the player who is holding the best 5-card hand wins. The player wins all the money in the pot, including the buy-in, and shares it with the other players. Each round of betting results in more or less money being thrown into the pot, so more than one player can win the game. If there are more than one players remaining, a showdown will be held to determine the winner.

Each player is dealt two cards, and the dealer starts by pitching them clockwise around the table. Then, players place small and big blinds, or forced bets, on each card. Blinds are necessary because without them, poker would be very boring, since each player would be putting money into the pot on every hand.

In each round of poker, one player takes turns as the dealer, which means that he or she is responsible for dealing out the cards. In some games, the dealer is a non-player. In other games, a player may take over as dealer for the entire game. In poker, the dealer is assigned a dealer chip, which is passed from player to player. Depending on the location of the dealer, certain betting rules apply.

The game of poker has many variations, from simple to complex. There are five-card stud and seven-card stud. In the seven-card stud variant, a player must have at least five different cards to win the pot.