Preflop
The first betting round, when each player has only his two cards and nothing is on the board yet. This is where you decide whether to play the hand at all.
Preflop is the betting before the flop: the cards are dealt, nothing is on the board yet, the blinds are in the pot. The player left of the big blind acts first, the big blind itself acts last. Three moves to choose from: fold, call or raise. Limping, a call without a raise, is almost unheard of in six-max: the field open-limps 0.64% of hands.
Most hands end here. Someone raised, everyone else folded, the dollar and a half in blinds went to the raiser. In the Daily 300 base four hands in ten reach the flop, and in two thirds of those I am already out. A player's strength preflop is not what he plays but what he does not play.
An example from session 14
In half an hour I looked at my cards 227 times out of 300 and left the hand before the flop. Each of those folds cost nothing and earned nothing, and together they made the session where the other 73 hands could be played without hurry. Preflop discipline does not show on the graph; its absence does.
The same in business
The decisive mistake is usually made at the start, by agreeing to a weak position at all. From there you can play flawlessly and still lose, because the hand should not have been started. Turning a deal down on the first call costs zero. Turning it down at the third meeting costs three meetings, which is why people turn down less at the third meeting than they should.
The whole hand is in session 14: “How much are you willing to pay to keep being right?”.
The other terms are in the glossary.