Poker is a card game of skill and chance, where players place bets and attempt to make winning hands. It can be played by two or more people and is the most common card game in casinos and home games. There are many different variants of poker, which vary in the number of cards dealt, whether they are face up or down and how the betting is structured. Regardless of the specific rules, all poker games involve one or more rounds of betting. The objective is to win the pot, which is the sum of all bets made during a particular deal. This is accomplished either by forming the highest-ranking poker hand or by betting enough to force other players to fold their cards and not compete for the pot.
Poker probably evolved from a variety of earlier vying games, most notably gin (late 16th century, England), flux & Trente-un (18th – 19th centuries, France) and brag (late 18th – early 19th centuries, English and American). These games usually involved three cards.
A poker story is not simply a description of the actions and events that occur during a hand, but also the emotions, tensions and psychology of the players. This can be conveyed through a combination of descriptive scenes, characterisation and the use of the five elements of plot conflict: exposition, rising action, characters eliminated, reveal and resolution. These are the elements that make a poker scene compelling to read or listen to.