The Bicycle Guide to The education of a poker player: including where and how one learns to win (Yardley, Herbert O. (Herbert Osborn) etc.)

1. 1Pick one target before you bluff. Yardley waits until one player has opened and only one has stayed in by the time action reaches him. 'It is hard enough to convince one person not to call, but extremely dangerous to fool two.' With two callers drawing, abandon the play.
2. 2Choose a game where the bluff can be believed. Monty prefers straight draw to deuces wild. In deuces, a pat hand can't pass for five of a kind or a straight flush, and a one-card draw reads as a straight, flush or two pair. In straight draw, 'I can stand pat any time I choose and the player must decide for himself whether I'm bluffing or not.'
3. 3Set the opponent up before the bluff pays. Stand pat on nothing often enough that the table knows you do it. Monty won Jake Moses's trunks by building exactly that reputation, then holding real threes. Work the same fake twice: the first time costs the opponent 'initiation fees', the second 'club dues'.
4. 4Alternate real and fake so the pattern stays unreadable. Monty: 'It's like odd or even... First you have them, then you don't. Keep them guessing.' Then, when you think you have them beaten, 'play the hand hard.' Set the man up with a bluff, then knock him down with the winning hand.
5. 5Control the physical evidence of the hand. Yardley bluffs only when dealing, because the dealer collects the discards and can mix his own hand in with them. At the National Press Club, members picked up discards to look at them, and there was no $20 penalty for doing so. Don't bluff where someone can inspect your cards.
6. 6Hold your own tells down, and read theirs. Yardley never talks while playing except to announce a bet or a showdown, because his voice might crack. Monty's tell was switching his cards to his left hand and betting with his right when bluffing (he is left-handed). The same observation applied to others: a player who acts weak and then bets, who shakes, drums, beams or chokes up, usually has the hand.
7. 7Raise the 'weak' player on your own terms. When a conversational opponent chatters at you, Yardley's advice is 'Raise him. He's already lost his string.' When you choose to bluff, make the bet sized to look the way a strong hand looks.
8. 8Tighten your image so the bluff gets respect. Yardley was so tight at the Press Club that members jumped to the second table when his seat was vacant, and one called him Old Adhesive. A tight image makes his raise credible.

At Monty's Place, Yardley, still a teenager, learns Monty's tell: Monty is left-handed, but when bluffing he moves his cards to his left hand and bets with his right, and he did this every time he was dealing draw. Yardley moves to the seat on Monty's left, so Monty will be betting into him and the sucker. A $5 opener comes from the drummer Jake Moses, and Monty raises $15. Yardley calls, and the drummer calls. Yardley draws one card, Monty stands pat, and the drummer takes three cards and checks. Monty bets $50, and Yardley raises, holding nothing. He tells Monty later, 'The same as you — nothing. That's the reason I had to raise.' The raise works because the tell has told him Monty has nothing, and because Monty took Yardley for a sucker drawing one card to a straight or flush. Both bluffs rest on what the opponent assumes the bet means.

• If more than one player is still in when action reaches you, don't bluff. Wait for a spot with one caller.
• If you can't control the discards or the cards you've thrown away, don't bluff. Wait until you deal and can mix your hand into the collected cards.
• If the game lets you stand pat on nothing, as straight draw does, use it. In deuces wild, a pat hand can't pass for the big hands, so the same play fails.
• If the opponent is a strong player who knows 'the book', expect the bluff to fail. They recognize the tactics and simply fold when you bet, so save the effort for weaker players.
• If you have beaten someone with a fake pat hand and later hold real threes, bet the real hand exactly as you bet the bluff. Monty won Jake's trunks that way.

• Bluffing into two callers. The tell is two players drawing against you; with either one, the odds of someone calling climb sharply.
• Leaking your own bluff. The tell is a physical or verbal habit repeating on the same play, like Monty's hand switch each time he dealt draw. Yardley saw it in a nightmare after losing at the table for days.
• Bluffing where discards can be read. At the Press Club, members picked up discards to look at them. If your bluffed hand is exposed, it costs you more than the pot.
• Bluffing every hand in the same way. The tell is opponents who stop calling or who always call. Monty alternates, 'odd or even', so the opponent must decide again each time.
• Playing the bluff in a game where the story doesn't hold. In deuces wild a pat hand can't pass for five of a kind or a straight flush. The tell is opponents who call you with a flush, a straight or a full house because they think they can beat it.

• ▸Game and variant: Name the game (straight draw or deuces wild). Note whether a pat hand can credibly represent a monster.
• ▸Position and seat: Note where you sit relative to the likely bettor. Yardley moved to Monty's left.
• ▸Number of callers: Count the players in at your turn. Proceed only with one.
• ▸Opponent's read: Record the one thing they believe about you (sucker, tight player, frequent bluffer).
• ▸Prior set-up: List the last time you showed a bluff or a fake pat hand. Note how many times the opponent has seen it.
• ▸Discard control: Note whether you are dealing and can mix your hand into the discards.
• ▸Your tell check: Write down the voice, hand and talk habit you'll keep quiet.
• ▸Their tell observed: Write the specific action you've seen that shows weak or strong (hand switch, chatter, drumming).
• ▸Decision: Record bluff, real hand played hard, or fold, and why.

1. 1Adopt Yardley's premise before you sit down: 'I do not believe in luck, only in the immutable law of averages.' Write it on the card you re-read before play. The author re-read Yardley 'solemnly, ritually, each week before the game' and did not lose for two years, apart from a couple of minor, very mild exceptions.
2. 2Set your entry standard in advance: take your move only when you are certain you are unbeatable or have, at worst, exceptionally good odds. Anything weaker is a fold. The rule is Yardley's: 'Assume the worst, believe no one.'
3. 3Learn the starting-hand tables for each game until they are automatic. In low ball, draw to four cards lower than a nine with no pair (2 3 5 6 K, A 4 5 8 8, A 2 6 7 J are Yardley's examples). Never draw more than one card. If you must draw two or more, throw the hand in.
4. 4Grade every finished hand by its rank, not by how it feels. Yardley's low-ball scale: eight low is a betting hand, nine low is good enough to call on but not to bet, jack low is not a winning hand, and a bust is folded. Fold jack low if anyone bets, unless you suspect a bluff.
5. 5Assume the worst about every opponent's holding. In five-card stud, a player who checked after leading only because the rules forced him to may be holding a strong hole card. Read the betting as information, and do not read it as a promise that your own hand will improve.
6. 6Refuse the optimist's accounting. Your earlier chips in the pot give you no claim on it. The author's group lost because they could not accept that hands which started well would not necessarily finish that way, and they felt they had 'some secret, special claim' to money already put in.
7. 7Keep the system running when winning is easy. The author began to wonder why he bothered with anything else once poker became a modest living. Treat an easy streak as a reason to keep the routine, not as a reason to loosen it.
8. 8Expect strong players to neutralise a purely rigid style. They know the book and will fold when you bet. When the table is strong, your discipline has to be paired with observation of how each opponent responds. Do not abandon it.

The author describes a young American who joined his game one summer: pale, sweating, overweight, a 'hick' with no small talk. He cleaned the group out twice running, handled the cards like a professional, and the others suspected him of cheating. The author later realised he was 'simply playing the classical game as it should be played by the book', while the rest gambled wildly. After reading Yardley twice he copied the method and played by the book for two years, re-reading Yardley before each Friday game, and did not lose except for a couple of very mild exceptions. In Yardley's low-ball lesson, Ling draws three cards to A 3 8 J Q, makes a pair of aces, and has a failed low hand. Yardley's correction is to draw one card at most, and to fold if two or more are needed. Ling then bets 2 4 5 6 J, and Yardley tells him jack low is not a winning hand and should be folded if anyone bets. The winning pattern is the same each time: the rule decides the play before the hope does.

• If your hand needs more than one draw card in low ball, then fold; it is a bust.
• If your made low hand is jack low, then fold to any bet unless you have a specific reason to suspect a bluff.
• If your hand is nine low, then you may call but do not bet; bet only with eight low or better.
• If you cannot say you are unbeatable or holding exceptionally good odds, then do not make the move.
• If you catch yourself reasoning that you have already put too much into the pot to quit, then fold anyway; chips already in carry no claim on the pot.
• If the table is full of players who know the book, then expect your bets to be folded to, and widen your attention to each player's state of mind instead of loosening your standards.

• Hope-driven drawing: you draw two or three cards 'because it might hit'. The tell is a pair of aces in a hand you meant to be low, as with Ling.
• Sunk-cost thinking: you stay in because of money already in the pot. The tell is a sentence like 'I've got too much in to fold'.
• Betting marginal hands: you bet jack low or nine low as if it were a winner. The tell is that you bet where you should have only called, or folded to a raise.
• Taking a bad streak or a good streak as a sign of luck: you start trusting your 'special relationship with fate'. The tell is deviating from the book after a win or loss.
• Complacency after easy wins: you start to wonder why you bother with anything else. The tell is that you skip the pre-game re-read, or lose interest in the skill.

• ▸Game and variant: name it (five-card draw low ball, seven-card stud, etc.) so you apply the right table.
• ▸My hand and rank: write the actual cards and grade them by the book (betting, calling, bust).
• ▸Draw count: for low ball, how many cards am I drawing? More than one means fold.
• ▸Strength standard: unbeatable, exceptionally good odds, or neither? Neither means fold.
• ▸Worst-case read: what do the opponents' bets and checks say about their hole cards, assuming the worst?
• ▸Sunk-cost test: am I tempted to stay in because of chips already in? Yes or no.
• ▸Opponent type: weak (misreads odds) or strong (knows the book and folds to bets)?
• ▸Action taken: fold, check, call, or bet, plus the rule that justified it.
• ▸Deviation log: if I broke the rule, record what pushed me (hope, boredom, mood).

1. 1Replace the idea of luck with the law of averages. Yardley wins because his method rests on 'the scientific study of thousands of individual poker hands' and he does 'not believe in luck.' Before each session, write down the one claim you are testing: that disciplined percentages beat enthusiasm over many sittings.
2. 2Start by studying hands off the table. Yardley dealt and recorded hands in his bedroom for months before risking his small inheritance. Deal and log sample hands in each variant you intend to play, and note which starting hands finish as winners.
3. 3Enter a pot only when you are unbeatable or hold exceptionally good odds. This is Yardley's rule in summary: 'Assume the worst, believe no one and make your move only when you are certain.' Folding most hands is what produces the large-majority win rate and keeps losses small.
4. 4Price every draw. Monty refuses to 'bet on the come' unless the odds are in his favour: 'I figure the odds for every card I draw.' Before calling with an unfinished hand, compare the cost to the pot and to the chance of improving. If the odds are not in your favour, fold.
5. 5Pick the game before the hand. Count how many players stay. If four of seven stay consistently, the game is loose, because four of seven 'cannot possibly hold minimum strength consistently.' Do not stay in a game unless at least three suckers are at the table, and sit to their left so you decide after they act.
6. 6Keep a file on every player: name, approximate age, health, obvious characteristics. Then watch for the less obvious ones. Add tells (Yardley's ear wiggle, Alvarez's hesitations and voice changes) so you can tell when someone has helped his hand and when he is bluffing.
7. 7Keep quiet and keep your own weaknesses under study. Yardley never talked while playing except to announce a bet or the showdown, because his voice might give him away. Treat silence as part of the system.
8. 8Review results over many sittings, not one. Yardley's record is 'never lost at over three consecutive sittings.' Judge your method on that scale. Alvarez re-read Yardley before every game and did not lose for two years apart from minor, mild exceptions.

Alvarez is the real case. He played as a gambler, 'recklessly and optimistically,' and lost regularly. Then a pale, overweight young American joined the game and cleaned the group out twice running, handling the cards 'like a professional.' The group suspected cheating. Alvarez later saw that the man was simply playing the classical game 'by the book,' while the others gambled wildly, unable to accept that hands which started well would not necessarily finish that way. A friend lent him Yardley's book, and he read it twice. He then played by it, re-reading it 'solemnly, ritually, each week before the game.' For two years, 'with a couple of minor and very mild exceptions,' he did not lose. The result is a long-run pattern of small, rare losses, not one big win.

• If your hand started well but is not yet made, then price the draw by the odds and fold unless they favour you. Do not assume it will finish well.
• If four of seven players stay in consistently, then the game is loose and weak players are in. Sit to the left of the wildest bettor and play tight.
• If you cannot count at least three suckers at the table, then leave or do not sit down.
• If you have a hand you believe is beaten and the price is not justified, then fold. You can wait for the hand in which you are certain or have exceptional odds.
• If strong players who know the book recognise your tight play and simply fold when you bet, then expect smaller wins. The method is strongest against weak players who do not understand the odds, so choose tables accordingly.

• Playing for the thrill. Yardley's friend lost $25,000 over a lifetime and said, 'I guess I just like to play cards.' The tell is that you stay in games and hands without a percentage reason.
• Believing you have a special claim on the money already in the pot. Alvarez's group could not fold hands that had 'started well' because they had already put chips in. The tell is calling to justify what you have invested.
• Betting on the come without checking the odds. The tell is that you cannot state the odds of the card you are chasing.
• Misreading the opponent by over- or undervaluing his intelligence. Poe's point, as Monty relays it, is that you guess wrong if you misjudge your opponent's intellect. The tell is that your bluffs get called by players you rated as simple.
• Winning a session and calling it a system. A short run proves little. The tell is that you have no log of hands or sittings to show your win rate over many sessions.

• ▸Game and variant: record the game and rules played (e.g. five-card draw, jacks or better, deuces wild).
• ▸Players seated and number staying: count how many of the seats stay in consistently. If four of seven do, mark the game loose.
• ▸Suckers identified (need at least 3): list the players who bet on everything and anything.
• ▸My seat relative to the suckers: note whether you sit to their left, so you act after them.
• ▸Player file entries: name, approximate age, health, obvious characteristics, and tells you have noticed.
• ▸Hands played vs. hands folded: tally both, to check that you enter only a small share of pots.
• ▸Draws taken: for each draw, record the odds of improving and the price you paid, and mark whether the odds favoured you.
• ▸Session result and loss size: record the win or loss and note whether any loss was small.
• ▸Running record across sittings: track consecutive sittings lost, aiming never to lose more than three in a row.

1. 1Write the minimum-requirement table for each variant you play before you sit down, and copy it from the book, not from memory. Five-card draw: kings or better, to open or to stay. Five-card stud: the page-48 list, unchanged by a joker. Betty Hutton and Doctor Pepper stud: the wild-card lists. Low-card forced-bet stud: the strict minimum that you will meet about one deal in seven.
2. 2Price a look before judging a fold. In the forced-bet stud example, a full round of deals costs about fifty cents at a twenty-five-cent forced bet, spread over seven three-card hands: about seven cents per hand. Rescale it to your limit. If a look is cheap, folding a marginal hand costs you nearly nothing, and there is always another deal.
3. 3Run a binary gate on your first cards: meets the written minimum, yes or no. 'Almost' and 'suited' count as no. In draw, small pairs, two face cards, and three-card straights or flushes are 'simply throwing' money away, even when the game lets anything open.
4. 4Neutralize the table's invitation. When a variant gives everyone a wild card (Spit-in-the-Ocean) or lets anything open, more players stay. Do not follow them. Go to the base game's list: Deuces Wild, page 70, or kings or better in five-card draw.
5. 5In wild-card stud, use the exact list. In Betty Hutton (nines and fives wild) you stay on: any three wild cards, three aces, kings, queens or jacks, any two wild cards, one wild card plus an ace or a king, or a three-card straight flush in one suit, jack or higher. Straights, flushes and full houses are 'not worth a call.' Doctor Pepper (tens, twos, fours wild) uses the same shape: three wild cards, one wild plus two aces or two kings, any two wild cards, or a three-card straight flush above a jack.
6. 6Re-check at each exposed card in stud. Staying on the first three cards does not commit you for the whole hand. With high cards, fold hands like A x x, K x x or J Q x, and stay with A x 10, K x 10 or J Q 10. If an opponent's exposed card beats you in sight and he bets, fold. If he checks, stay.
7. 7Apply the same gate to games you have not seen. Match the new game to the closest game you have mastered and borrow its staying requirements.
8. 8Accept the cadence the discipline produces. In the forced-bet game you play about one hand in seven, win roughly forty percent of those, and in six four-hour sittings win about five and lose once, with a losing sitting costing no more than half an average winning one. In seven-card stud the pots are larger but you win less often. Stay 'in the deep freeze a bit longer' and avoid ending up with the second-best hand.

Take the cost arithmetic from the forced-bet stud game. Seven players are dealt three cards each, and the holder of the low card is forced to bet twenty-five cents. One round of deals costs about fifty cents, so each three-card look costs about seven cents. Your minimum requirement is met about once in seven deals, so waiting for it costs about forty-nine cents on average. In most other games the requirements let you stay in twice as many pots, so the cost is lower still. The payoff is that you win about forty percent of the hands you play, because you stay on strong hands only. Set that against the player who stays on a weak hand: he pays more than seven cents to chase a hand that is probably second best. The stud hand works the same way on a smaller scale. Hole cards J Q with a third card J give you two concealed jacks against an opponent's exposed 4 4. You are beating what you see, so you raise if he bets and bet if he checks. If he raises back, fold. A sucker may already hold three fours, and a strong player may be bluffing a run-out. The start was sound, but the later action changes the price of continuing.

• If your hand does not meet the variant's written minimum, fold, because a look costs only a few cents and another deal is coming.
• If the game adds wild cards, an open-on-anything rule, or a crowd that stays, ignore the invitation and use the base game's list (kings or better in draw; the Deuces Wild list for Spit-in-the-Ocean).
• If the game is not in your table, map it to the closest game you have mastered and use its staying requirements.
• If you are in stud and an opponent's exposed cards beat you in sight and he bets, fold. If he checks, stay.
• If you raise with a legitimately strong start and a strong player re-raises, treat that as the plot thickening and lean toward folding rather than defending a marginal edge.

• Following the crowd into a gimmick game. You stay in Spit-in-the-Ocean because everyone has a wild card. The tell is that your reason for staying is about the table, not your hand.
• Treating the 'open on anything' rule as a reason to play. You stay with small pairs, two face cards, or three-card straights and flushes. The tell is a hand that only qualifies under the game's loosest rule.
• Over-valuing a wild-card hand that fits no list. You call with straights, flushes or full houses in Betty Hutton or Doctor Pepper. The tell is that the hand looks big but is on the 'not worth a call' list.
• Judging patience by the last few hands. You abandon the minimum after a cold run, forgetting that the discipline means folding about six of every seven hands and winning about five sittings in six. The tell is loosening your standard after a stretch of folds.
• Staying after the first round without re-checking. You hold a nominally playable stud hand but are beat in sight and the opponent has bet. The tell is staying because you already put chips in.

• ▸Variant: name the game (for example five-card draw, Betty Hutton stud, Spit-in-the-Ocean).
• ▸Written minimum: copy the book's staying requirement for this variant, not your recollection of it.
• ▸Hand held: record the exact first cards.
• ▸Meets minimum (Y/N): answer strictly. 'Almost' counts as N.
• ▸Table temptation: note any wild card, anything-opens rule, or crowd staying that tempts you off the list.
• ▸Base-game override: name the covered game whose list you use if the variant is gimmicky or unfamiliar.
• ▸Cost to look: your limit's price for these cards (the book's example is about seven cents).
• ▸Beaten in sight (stud): Y/N, plus whether the opponent bet or checked.
• ▸Action and recheck: fold, stay, or raise, plus the next card at which you will re-test the hand.

1. 1Settle before the deal what you play and what you fold, as Yardley does ('by the book'). Alvarez's table lost because it gambled wildly, sure that hands which started well would finish well. Write the rule down in advance so the decision at the table is a lookup.
2. 2Rate your starting hand against the table, not in isolation. Yardley's stud rules key off three things: whether you hold a back-to-back (hole-card) pair, how high the pair is, and what the exposed cards show. Record those three facts first. Monty's version of the same discipline is to play only when you believe you hold the best hand.
3. 3Put a size limit on the draw. Yardley takes one card, and only one, to a small back-up pair (2-2 through 8-8). Make a set on the 3rd card and you stay. Otherwise you stop paying. His two reasons: the betting gets too stiff to justify more cards, and the percentages are against you.
4. 4Count the table as well as your cards. In seven-handed stud, if everyone draws, four players will pair. A small pair is therefore usually a second-best hand waiting to happen, because it is as easy to make a big pair as a small one when you hold high cards.
5. 5Convert quoted odds into a probability, then compare it with the price. The book's footnote says '11 to 1' means one chance in twelve. Work out the chance of improving, work out what the call costs against what is in the pot, and continue only when the first justifies the second. If the bet is stiff relative to the draw, fold.
6. 6Re-test the hand on every street. Keep playing a big pair or 9-9 'until I am beat in sight or until I think I am beat by a concealed pair'. When an exposed card beats you, or the betting says a concealed pair does, you are drawing to a second-best hand, so fold. Ignore what you have already put in the pot. Alvarez's table lost money by treating contributed chips as a claim on the pot.
7. 7Choose the bet size that makes the odds you want. Monty's rule on three of a kind shows the principle. Above tens, don't raise, because you want callers. Below tens, raise, because you don't want many drawing against you. Price each bet to keep or shed opponents deliberately.
8. 8Check that the game is straight before trusting the percentages. The card sharp in the passage says 'You study percentages; I deal seconds.' Odds hold only in a game on the level, so if the dealing sounds wrong, leave.

Yardley's first practice deal is seven-handed five-card stud. The 1st player shows an Ace and bets. The 2nd player holds a back-to-back pair of Sixes and just calls. The 3rd calls on K-7. The 4th calls on 8-9, and Yardley says 'I would fold this hand.' The 5th folds on 3-2. The 6th calls on J-8, and Yardley would fold it. The 7th calls on 2-A, and he would fold that too. Every one of those calls is a draw to a second-best hand: nothing paired, with the betting already stiff. His small-pair rule explains the folds. If everyone keeps drawing, four of the seven will pair, and a hand with no pair and no high cards is not likely to be the best of them. The Sixes are different, because they are already a made pair. In the second deal the same player has three Sixes, two of them exposed, and bets. The 3rd player raises on two Kings 'according to the book', and the 4th, 6th, 7th and 1st players all fold. The 2nd player only calls, 'waiting for the kill'. Two hands, one rule: stay when the made hand and the price justify it, and fold when you are drawing at a bad price.

• If you hold a small back-up pair (2-2 to 8-8) and no third card has made a set, then take one card and no more, and fold if the betting is stiff.
• If you hold a big pair back to back, then stay regardless of the size of the 3rd or 4th cards. If you hold 9-9 backed up, stay until you are beat in sight or believe you are beaten by a concealed pair.
• If you have three cards above a Nine and are beat in sight, or believe a concealed pair beats you, then fold. Otherwise take the 4th and 5th cards.
• If you hold three of a kind above tens, then don't raise, because you want callers. If the threes are below tens, raise, because you don't want many drawing against you.
• If the game has a wild-card structure that lets nearly anyone open, as deuces wild does, then expect everyone to draw against a pat hand. Price your play for a crowded table, and consider passing to keep from opening into one.

• Sticking with a hand because you have already paid in. Alvarez's group thought it had 'some secret, special claim' on money already in the pot. The tell is that you call because of what you have put in rather than because of your chance of winning.
• Treating a good start as a good finish. The tell is that you call on the 3rd or 4th card without recounting who is beat in sight or likely holding a concealed pair.
• Drawing more than one card to a small pair. Yardley says this 'will keep you broke'. The tell is that you are in a multiway pot with a low pair, hoping for a miracle on the last cards.
• Betting without regard for the odds, as the Chungking table did, disregarding 'all mathematical probabilities'. The tell is that you stake money as if it had no value, and nobody is watching what the bet offers the callers.
• Trusting the percentages in a crooked or distorted game. The tell is that your results diverge from what the odds predict, or you hear something wrong in the deal, as Monty did when he caught the sound of a second being dealt.

• ▸Game and table size: for example, five-card stud, seven-handed.
• ▸Starting hand: down card(s) and up card(s), and whether any pair is back to back.
• ▸Made hand or draw: is it already a pair or better, or are you drawing?
• ▸Draw limit: the number of cards your rule allows for this hand, e.g. one card to a small pair.
• ▸Beat in sight: does any exposed hand beat you now? Yes or no.
• ▸Concealed-pair suspicion: does the betting suggest a hidden pair against you? Yes or no.
• ▸Chance of improving: written as 'N to 1', converted to one chance in N+1.
• ▸Price: the cost to call set against the size of the pot.
• ▸Verdict: stay, raise or fold, with the rule that decided it.

1. 1Audit your own tells before you play. Yardley's list of opponent tells doubles as a checklist for you: leaning over to study your hand when it is your turn to bet, lighting a cigarette and feigning not to know it is your turn, shaking hands on a big pot, chatting, drumming fingers after a card hits or after the draw, beaming when the hand improves, voice inflection on check/call/bet, choking up. Ask which of these you do, and fix them one at a time.
2. 2Fix one routine for every decision. Look at your cards, take the same pause, and make the same motion and tone whether you hold the nuts or nothing. A uniform routine leaves nothing to read, and so removes the choice between acting strong and acting weak.
3. 3Control your hands and voice at the exact moment of peak emotion: when the card that makes your hand arrives, and when you check, call or bet. Yardley's shaking player 'probably made his hand as early as the fifth card' and gives it away before the end, so prepare for the moment the hand is made, not for the moment of betting.
4. 4Stay quiet. The 'conversational player' who says 'you made two aces... Did you? Well, just for that I'm going to make you a little bet' has already 'lost his string'. Don't narrate, taunt or invite replies. Anything you say is data for the table.
5. 5Break your own betting habits before they are noticed. Monty bets with his right hand when bluffing, which he calls his 'damned-fool habit', and on the buggy ride he admits he used his right hand deliberately against Hairlip 'just in case' it had been observed. Learn which hand, chip motion or timing you associate with bluffs, and either remove it or use it deliberately.
6. 6Protect physical information as well as behavioural. At the National Press Club, members picked up discards to look at them, which Yardley calls 'deadly stuff' for a bluffer. He bluffed only when dealing, so that he controlled the discards and could mix his hand into the pile. Know who can see your mucked cards and bluff only when they can't.
7. 7Keep your discipline across results and across the evening. Accept a loss as a cost of the book rather than the table's debt to you. Yardley's own caution on small pairs (draw only to nines or better, otherwise take one card and fold if you don't make threes) is the same restraint applied to impulse.

Yardley describes a hand at the National Press Club using Monty's bluffing trick. He works it only when dealing, since he controls the discards, and only when one player has opened and exactly one has stayed. He avoids two callers because 'it is hard enough to convince one person not to call, but extremely dangerous to fool two.' Because members peek at discards, he gathers his own cards and mixes them into the discards after the bluff, so no one can check what he drew. His demeanour is already established: he is so tight that members jump to the second table when a seat opens, and one broadcaster calls him 'Old Adhesive'. That reputation means his raise is believed. Monty, the model for the trick, adds one more control: he deliberately bets with his right hand, his own bluffing tell, so that anyone who has noticed it reads him wrongly. Behaviour, reputation, position and card handling all serve the same end of giving away nothing.

• If you notice you are about to speak, act out a decision, or do something with your hands (cigarette, leaning over, drumming), then drop it and run your standard routine instead. Every one of these is a tell Yardley lists.
• If your hand has just improved (a strong card on the fifth, or after the draw), then slow your face, hands and voice first. This is when beaming, shaking and choking up happen.
• If an opponent is chatty, theatrical, fidgety or shaking on a big pot, then treat the behaviour as information, but never copy it. Raise the one who has 'lost his string'.
• If other players can see or pick up your discards or folded cards, then do not bluff, or bluff only when you control the discards and can mix your hand in.
• If a known habit of yours (such as Monty's right hand for bluffing) may have been noticed, then reverse or neutralise it deliberately, and don't assume you have been missed.

• Controlling the face but not the hands or voice: you stay deadpan while your fingers drum or shake, or your voice rises on a bet. The tell is that opponents fold or call exactly when your body moves.
• Over-acting. The player who 'leans over and studies one hand at a time' or lights a cigarette and pretends not to know it is his turn gives his strength away by performing hesitation. The tell is an act that always comes before a bet or raise.
• Talking yourself out of position: commentary, banter or gloating after a win. The conversational player loses his string, and his chatter marks him for a raise.
• Holding the poker face at the table but leaving the cards exposed, so discards or mucked hands are turned over and read. The tell is curious players handling the pile after you bluff.
• Treating a loss as an injustice, or a series of wins as proof you are special, and so playing wildly. Introduction-era beginners played as if they had 'some secret, special claim to the money' already put in the pot, and they were beaten by a player who stuck to the book. The tell is chasing hands that started well.

• ▸My known or suspected tells (hands, voice, face, speech, props): list against Yardley's catalogue (leaning, cigarette act, shaking, chatter, drumming, beaming, voice inflection, choking up).
• ▸Moment each tell appears: note the exact point (after the card hits, at check/call/bet, after the draw, on a big pot).
• ▸Replacement behaviour: write the single neutral action you will use instead.
• ▸Standard routine: the same look-pause-bet sequence for every hand, strong or weak.
• ▸Betting habit check (e.g. which hand or chip motion I use when bluffing): record it and decide to remove or reverse it.
• ▸Speech rule: what I may say at the table, with a default of nothing about my hand or theirs.
• ▸Discard/exposure check: who can see or pick up my cards, and the conditions under which I will not bluff.
• ▸Opponent tells observed this session: note behaviours worth exploiting.
• ▸End-of-session slips: record each lapse and the hand where it happened.

1. 1Set a baseline before you read anything. Watch each opponent in hands where nothing is at stake: how he handles cards, how fast he bets, how his voice sounds. Alvarez names the signals: 'small fidgets and quirks, the hesitations, the faint changes in timbre which indicate tension or confidence.' A deviation only means something against a baseline.
2. 2Watch the hands and chips as well as the face. Yardley's break came in a nightmare: Monty was left-handed, yet when he bluffed he shifted his cards from the right hand to the left and bet with the right. Note which hand, which motion and which chip-grab accompany each kind of hand.
3. 3Record each behavior next to the hand it turned out to belong to. Yardley dealt and recorded hands in his bedroom, and he later did the same on hotel stationery for Ling. Write the behavior, then the showdown result, so a hunch becomes a tested pattern.
4. 4Read the bet as speech: 'money has — and is — its own language in poker.' In the source hand, the king and the ace both checked to the jack to feign weakness, then both raised to claim strength. Ask what the pattern of checks and raises is saying, and whether it matches what the player's earlier passivity implied.
5. 5Estimate the opponent's cunning, then step one level above it. Poe's schoolboy reasons that a simpleton repeats his last move reversed, and a slightly smarter man expects that and doesn't vary. Match your guess to the depth he reasons at, no deeper and no shallower.
6. 6Add context off the cards. Alvarez asks: 'Is he depressed or riding high? What is his financial position, off the table as well as on? What are his vanities, his fears?' Use the answers to predict whether he will call, raise or fold.
7. 7Calibrate with a cheap test. Monty's advice is to carry pennies and entice people to play odd or even. If you win consistently, you have proof you can judge another's acumen. If you don't, you have misjudged the intellect, and the same will happen at the table.
8. 8Hide your own signals while you read. Yardley's rule: 'Keep a poker face. Keep silent.' Study your own weaknesses as carefully as your opponents'.

Yardley was losing at Monty's Place, down to his last fifty dollars, when he woke in a sweat from a nightmare and replayed the scene: Monty yelling 'Deal!' and pounding the table with his right fist. Monty was left-handed. Yardley remembered that when Monty was tense, he shifted his cards from the right hand to the left and bet with the right. When Monty bluffed, he came charging in like a wild buffalo, grabbed just the right amount of chips and slammed the bet down, and the opponent was scared or at least confused. Yardley had seen all this night after night without decoding it. The tell was a deviation from Monty's habitual hand use, tied to a specific outcome (a bluff). Once Yardley named it, he could call the aggression for what it was. Monty then taught him the second layer: Poe's even-or-odd schoolboy, who wins by identifying his intellect with his opponent's, so the lesson was to size up Monty's cunning as well as watch his hands.

• If an opponent's behavior departs from his own baseline in a bet (a different hand, speed or voice pitch), then treat it as information and check it against his past showdowns before acting.
• If a player checks early and then raises hard, then consider that he feigned weakness to disguise strength, as the king and ace did, and fold marginal hands.
• If you cannot say whether the opponent reasons one level or two, then don't make a play that depends on it. Test first with low-stakes guesses until your read wins consistently.
• If the opponent plays by the book and is disciplined, then expect him to recognize your standard tactics and fold to your bets, so don't rely on simple pressure against him.
• If a tell contradicts the betting story, then look at his situation (mood, money, vanity) before trusting either.

• Reading without a baseline: you treat ordinary fidgeting as a tell. The tell is a read that fails against a calm opponent who always fidgets.
• Seeing the tell but never recording it, so each hand restarts from impression. The sign is that you can't say what any behavior preceded at showdown.
• Over- or undervaluing the opponent's intellect. Poe's warning: if you misjudge his cunning, you guess wrong. The sign is that you keep calling bluffs from simple players or folding to straightforward ones.
• Leaking your own tells: you study others and neglect your own fidgets, voice and chip handling. The sign is that good players fold whenever you bet.
• Treating betting patterns as pure strength. The check-then-raise hand shows that a bet can claim or conceal strength. The sign is that you pay off disguised monsters.

• ▸Opponent: name or seat, plus his off-table situation (mood, money, vanities) as far as you know it.
• ▸Baseline behavior: how he handles cards and chips, his pace and his voice when nothing is at stake.
• ▸Observed deviation: the specific change (hand used, hesitation, pitch, chip grab) and in which betting spot it occurred.
• ▸Betting story: his check, bet and raise sequence in the hand, and whether it signals strength or feigned weakness.
• ▸Inference: the strong or weak (or bluff) read you drew, written before the showdown.
• ▸Showdown result: what he actually held.
• ▸Match or miss: did the inference hold? Tally across hands to confirm the pattern.
• ▸Cunning level: your estimate of how many steps ahead he reasons (simple, one step, two steps).
• ▸Next action: call, fold, bet or raise, and how you will test or hide your own signals.

1. 1Decide before you sit down that the table must contain suckers. Yardley's conclusion from playing in many towns is 'the smaller the stakes, the wilder the game, the easier to win.' Treat that as your screening hypothesis, not a guarantee, and test it by observation.
2. 2Watch before you buy in. Yardley watched the game for days to get over his fear, and his losses came from playing before he had read the table. Spend at least several hands as a spectator and decide whether the game is worth entering.
3. 3Measure looseness by how many players stay. In Yardley's saloon, draw and deuces wild had so many stayers that the game slowed down while discards were shuffled to fill the draw. Count callers per hand. Many callers on ordinary hands marks a loose, weak table.
4. 4Read the bet size and raise frequency. Yardley found that farther from home the bets were smaller, the raises more frequent and the games wilder. Frequent raises at low stakes signal players who do not understand the odds.
5. 5Sort the players into two groups: those who play the odds and those who don't. Yardley's method is 'iron-clad' against weak players who do not understand the odds or the finesses. Against strong players who know 'the book,' they recognise your tactics and simply fold when you bet. Count how many of each group are seated.
6. 6Take a seat to the left of the loosest bettor. The passages give the instruction but not the mechanics. The practical logic is that you act after the loose player has committed chips, so you see his action first. Mark the loosest player and sit on his left if a seat is open.
7. 7Re-evaluate after the table changes. Alvarez's profitable group scattered, and the games he moved to had no easy pickings. If the sucker count drops, the edge goes with it. Leave or reduce your stake, and do not keep playing out of habit.
8. 8Play your tight, conservative game only after the table has passed the screen. Assume the worst, believe no one, and move only when you are unbeatable or have exceptionally good odds.

Alvarez, a reader of Yardley, had a regular Friday-evening game at eight o'clock. For two years he played 'by the book,' re-reading Yardley before each game, and with 'a couple of minor and very mild exceptions' he did not lose. The table was soft: he calls it 'easy pickings' and 'taking money off mugs,' and a weekly game was enough for 'a modest living.' Then the group scattered. The games he moved into were 'subtler and sterner': everybody knew the book and most had read Yardley. His tight style was now recognisable, and his edge shrank. He kept playing because he preferred the skilled contest, even when he lost. The lesson for selection is that his two-year profit came from the table, not from some change in his skill. When the sucker count fell to zero, the easy win went with it. A player whose only aim is profit would have left and found a looser game.

• If many players stay in on ordinary hands, then the table is loose and worth entering. If few stay and raises are rare, then the table is probably tight and not worth it.
• If most seats are held by players who know 'the book' and fold when you bet, then your conservative system loses its edge. Leave, or play only if you accept the smaller returns.
• If stakes are small and the raising is frequent and wild, then expect the easiest wins, following Yardley's rule that smaller stakes and wilder games are easier to beat.
• If an open seat lies to the left of the loosest bettor, then take it rather than a seat on his right.
• If your regular sucker-heavy group breaks up, then re-screen the new table from scratch. Do not assume your winning record carries over.

• Staying at a table out of habit or comfort after the suckers have left. The tell is that you win less, or play for 'the pleasure of the skilful contest,' as Alvarez did, rather than for profit.
• Buying in before watching. The tell is that you are losing and learning at the same time, as Yardley did in his first nights at Monty's, before he had gathered any information.
• Mistaking a lively table for a weak one. The tell is that bets are large and play is fast but few players call. Looseness shows in how many stay, not in noise.
• Playing tight against opponents who know the book. The tell is that your bets win only small pots because everyone folds. Your tactics are being recognised.
• Ignoring seat position. The tell is that the loose bettor acts after you, so you commit chips before seeing his action. The passages state the left-of-loose rule without explaining it, so verify the benefit in play.

• ▸Game and stakes: write the form (e.g. draw, stud) and the stakes level. Smaller stakes tend toward wilder play.
• ▸Hands observed before buying in: count the hands you watched. Do not sit down on a blank record.
• ▸Average players staying per hand: count callers across observed hands. A high number indicates a loose table.
• ▸Raise frequency: note whether raises are frequent or rare. Frequent raises at small stakes indicate weak players.
• ▸Players who know 'the book': list seats where players fold to your bets or play tight and recognisable.
• ▸Likely suckers: list seats where players stay on weak hands or ignore the odds.
• ▸Loosest bettor and his seat: name the seat. Choose your seat to his left if one is open.
• ▸Sucker count vs. skilled count: write the two numbers. Enter only if suckers clearly outnumber skilled players.
• ▸Re-check trigger: write the condition that makes you leave (e.g. a sucker leaves, stayers fall, you stop winning).