Poker is a game of incomplete information — you rarely know if you have the best hand — and, more important, a game of betting. The essential action of poker is betting, or folding if the betting gets too rich for you. The winner is the player with the best hand who’s still in at the end of the hand, and you get to the end of the hand only if you call all the bets along the way. If you have the best hand and fold, you lose. And if you have the worst hand and make everybody else fold — by bluffing, by betting and acting like you have a good hand — then you win. - How to Teach Your Kids Poker, the Easy Way / HN

The right way to begin is with one-card poker.