Poker is a card game where you use your cards to form the best five-card hand. It is one of the most popular casino games and is played in tournaments and at home. Poker has many different variations, but all of them share a few core concepts. The first thing you need to learn is the rules of the game. You can find these online or ask your friends to teach you. After you have a basic understanding, you can start studying the game more seriously.

Once the dealer has dealt everyone two cards, betting begins. Each player must decide if they want to hit, call or raise their bet. If you are holding a good poker hand like a pair of kings, then you would say “call”. The next step is to put three community cards on the table that anyone can use, called the flop.

Now is the time to start thinking about your hand’s strength and how you can beat the other players. There are many ways to do this, and a lot of the strategies that you read in books or see on YouTube will probably be very different from your own. The key is to practice and watch other players play to develop quick instincts.

It’s also important to study some charts that will tell you which hands beat what. Knowing that a flush beats a straight, for example, is very useful information. You should also try to memorize a few basic terms, such as check (checking means calling a bet), fold (folding your hand), call (calling the previous player’s raise) and raise (raising the stakes by matching the amount of the last person).