In Poker, the goal is to win the pot, the aggregate of all bets in a hand. Players compete by making and raising bets in order to make strong hands or force weaker hands to fold. In some forms of the game, all players must make forced bets (an ante or blind) before any other bets can be made. In most cases, the cards are dealt face up and betting rounds may occur in a number of different ways depending on the specific variant of poker being played.
In the most common form of the game, each player is required to place at least one low-denomination chip into the pot for each round that he or she remains in contention to win the pot. This is often called the “kitty.” The kitty is used to pay for new decks of cards and food, and any money in the kitty that remains at the end of a game belongs to the players still in the game.
When it is a player’s turn to bet, they can say “call” to indicate that they are placing in the pot as many chips as the last person did. This is usually done when a player feels that they have a hand that can beat the current one.
The player can also raise the amount that they are placing into the pot by saying “raise.” If a player says this, the other players may choose to either call the new bet or to fold.