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Club: your seat

Club is about where you are sitting. It is the cheapest edge in poker and the one beginners give away without noticing, because the same two cards are a raise in one chair and a fold in another. Four rules, and the last one is about not being readable.

The letters, in order: C, L, U, B. Each one is a single question you ask before you act. Run them in order and most hands answer themselves.

Four rules, spelled C-L-U-B: Careful, Loosen, Unpredictable, Blinds

Everything in SPADE and HEART bends around one question: where are you sitting relative to the button? This section is the map. And it ends with the rule that keeps a beginner from being eaten alive: the art of not being predictable.

First, the geography. The button moves one seat left each hand, so you'll rotate through every zone:

                    [ BUTTON ]  ← acts last: the throne
      LATE  ─────  [ CUTOFF ]  ← one before the button: nearly as good
                   [ MIDDLE SEATS ]
     EARLY ─────  [ FIRST SEATS AFTER THE BLINDS ]  ← act first: the mud
                   [ SMALL BLIND ] [ BIG BLIND ]  ← forced bets, act first after the flop