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Spade: your cards

Spade is the suit that decides which hands you play at all, and how far you take them. It is the largest section here for a reason: most of the money a beginner loses is lost before the flop, on hands that should never have been played, from seats that made them worse. Five gates, and a hand has to pass all of them.

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

Five gates, spelled S-P-A-D-E: Seat, Picture, Add, Dollar, Extra

Run them in order. Most hands die at the first or second gate. When that happens, the system is working — folding a lot is the strategy, not a failure of it.