Poker is a card game that involves betting and requires a certain degree of luck, skill and psychology. However, when betting is involved it becomes much more of a game of chance than it otherwise would be. In addition, poker is also very complex because there are many different ways to play it and because there are a lot of rules.

The most obvious poker game is Texas Hold’em, but there are many more variants. It’s good to study them all so that you have a well-rounded understanding of the game. You should also familiarize yourself with the different hand rankings. The highest hand is a Royal flush (five cards of the same suit, ranked ace through ten), followed by a Straight Flush, Four of a Kind, Three of a Kind and then two pair. High card breaks ties when nobody has a pair or better.

A common mistake that new players make is thinking about their own hand in isolation. It’s important to think about what hands your opponents might have and make moves based on those ranges. This is called reading an opponent. It allows you to force weaker hands out of the pot and to raise the value of your own hand. It’s a major part of what separates amateur players from pros.