To deal is to give cards to the players. At the start of a hand it generally refers to the dealer shuffling and dealing the cards to all of the players. Later in the hand it may be used to refer to additional cards being dealt to the players, or the community.

It is common practice in live games that before dealing additional cards the card on the top of deck is mucked. Discarding this card is meant to remove any advantage a player would have from accidentally seeing the card, or recognizing markings on the card. In practice, with professional dealers, it is mainly tradition which dictates this behaviour.