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Six practice boards, worked through

Cover the answers and work through them. This is the drill that builds the reflex.

1. K♠ 8♦ 3♣ Paired? No. Suited? No (three different suits — a rainbow board). Laddered? No — a K and an 8 can't sit in one five-rank window. Nuts: a set of kings (pocket K-K matching the board's king). Three of a kind is the ceiling — no flush, no straight, no full house is available to anyone. If you hold A-K here, you have top pair with the best kicker on the safest board shape there is. Bet it, and keep betting it.

2. Q♠ J♠ 9♦ Paired? No. Suited? Two spades only — no flush yet. Laddered? Yes. Nuts: K-10, a king-high straight. Every straight on this board needs a ten. Your top pair of queens is a decent hand facing a small bet and a losing one facing a big one — and if a spade or a ten arrives on the turn, re-run the scan.

3. A♥ K♥ 7♥ Paired? No — so no full house exists, no matter what. Suited? Yes, three hearts. Laddered? No. Nuts: the Q♥ flush (any two hearts including the queen). The key card is the Q♥ — if you're holding it, nobody has the nut flush. A straight flush would need five hearts in a row; A-K-7 isn't close.

4. 9♠ 9♦ 4♣ Paired? Yes. Suited? No. Laddered? No. Nuts: four of a kind — pocket 9s. The realistic nuts is the nut full house, which here is 9-4 (nines full of fours), because a full house ranks by its three-of-a-kind first — 9-4 beats pocket 4s. The lesson: on a paired board, your flush and your straight are not safe, and this is where beginners lose whole stacks.

5. 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ Paired? No. Suited? Yes. Laddered? Yes. Both at once, which is the alarm bell. Nuts: 10♥-9♥, a ten-high straight flush. Always check straight flush when the suit and the ladder overlap. Below that sit the flush, then the straight — this board beats almost everything you could be holding. Your set of eights is third best here. Proceed with enormous caution.

6. A♠ A♦ K♠ K♦ 2♣ (a river board) Paired? Twice. Nuts: four of a kind. But notice what else is true: everyone at the table already holds two pair, aces and kings, just by playing the board. Your own two pair is worth nothing — the hand is decided by whether anyone holds an ace, a king, or a pocket pair, and otherwise by the fifth card. When the board plays itself, your "made hand" may be an illusion.