+282on six buy-ins, after losing six in the first hour
The night the stop-loss worked
Ten players, four cards, a loose table. One of us lost six buy-ins in the first hour, mostly on hands that looked fine on one board: two pair here, a middle set there, a king-high flush that paid a raise. Six buy-ins is the stop-loss we had agreed on, so he stopped, stood up, and took a breath. He sat back down, played only real hands, and won four big pots in the second half. The night ended at plus 282, on exactly the six buy-ins the rule allows.
The rule it paid for: facing a bet, a hand that is not the nuts and not a draw to the nuts is a fold, even when the price looks right. And a budget for the night is not a limit on your play, it is what lets you keep playing well.
−160on five buy-ins, while the two most aggressive players lost 1,460 between them
Losing small is a result
Same game, three nights later. The two players who had been running over the table bought in 24 and 19 times and finished deep in the red. Our player bought five times and lost 160. Quiet, unexciting, and the second night in a row that the stop-loss held. The same evening another regular told him, kindly, "you are predictable; when you win, you do not win enough."
The rule it paid for: two of them. Lose small is half the method and it works. The other half is winning big, and that needs the first bet with every strong board, not only with the nuts, so that the table cannot read you.
700all in with quads on one board, nothing on the other
The all-in that could not win
Quads on the top board. Nothing on the bottom. He moved all in for 700, and the one player who could read a table called with a pair of nines, because the nines were live on the bottom board and he knew the all-in meant one board. Top board to our player, bottom board to the nines, the 700 came back across the table. A chop. Half an hour of adrenaline for zero.
The rule it paid for: nuts on one board and nothing on the other is a pot bet when it can make everyone fold. Against a player who will call with any live second board, it earns nothing. Bet the size that a second-best hand on your board will pay; keep the all-in for the night you hold something on both.
150on almost every flop, then the pot on the turn
The player who bets every flop
One regular bets 150 into the 200 pot on nearly every flop, from any seat, then pots the turn when he has it and checks when he does not. For months this looked like gambling. He also bought in fourteen times one night and finished plus 580. We put his line into the engine: bet the flop with any strong board, pot the turn only with the nuts, a nut draw or a strong made hand. Against our table it earned about ten chips a hand more than the careful line. His first bet means nothing; his turn bet means everything. That is now step two of the method.
The rule it paid for: the first bet earns because it is first, from any seat. The money is made on the turn, when whoever called with nothing folds.
1buy-in, plus 1,562, in a night where everyone else rebought
The player who waits
The strongest player in our game bought in once and left with 1,562. He played both boards, every time. He folded hands the rest of us would have called with, and when he bet big it was because he held something on both boards or the nuts on one and a live draw on the other. Nobody at the table can remember him paying off a one-board hand.
The rule it paid for: the first sentence of the method, which is also the first page of the only book on the game: play both boards. Nothing on one board means you need the nuts on the other to continue.
Your story
When the course opens, members log their nights: buy-ins, result, the hands that decided it. With permission, the ones that teach something will appear here under the same rule as these: numbers exact, names gone, nothing invented.