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Heart: your bluffs

Heart covers the one move in poker where you deliberately put money in with the worst hand. That makes the discipline tighter, not looser. Five locks, and every one has to open before you fire — which, at a small local game, will not happen often. That is the correct answer, not a failure of nerve.

The letters, in order: H, E, A, R, T. Each one is a single question you ask before you act. Run them in order and most hands answer themselves.

Five locks, spelled H-E-A-R-T: Heads-up, Eyes, Act, Rescue, Third

It takes heart to bet with nothing — that's the mnemonic. But here's the discipline underneath: the SPADE gates keep you from losing money, while bluffing is the one move in poker where you volunteer money holding the worst hand. So the rules get stricter, not looser. All five locks must open. Any single one stays shut, you check.

The mechanism you're renting: a bluff wins only when a better hand folds. Every lock below is one condition that makes that fold likely. Skip a condition and you haven't made a bluff — you've made a donation with a dramatic pause.