When playing Texas Holdem, either in person or online, there is one rule that you can live by. When you are playing against players with the "any two will do" philosophy, you may need to play tighter than you normally do. Many players that are new to Texas Holdem are coming from their home games where the dealer names the game. By the end of the night in a typical home game, you will inevitably be locked in a round where every black jack, deuces, and diamond face cards are wild. With everything in the deck wild, people just naturally play every hand. There is no chucking the cards before everything is dealt. There is no need to. You start the night knowing that you will be up or down a little when the night is over and you don't really care either way. Texas Holdem is different. If you play a Texas Holdem tournament, the best players are usually left when the game is nearing its conclusion. The players that play every hand can make things painful for the better players and even the best played hand can be disaster when the river makes a hero out of a fool. By this, I mean you (a good player) goes all-in with a pair of Aces and are called by someone holding a 5-7 offsuit. The flop gives him a pair of 5s and he hits another 7 on the river. You are now knocked out of the tournament by someone who should have never been in the hand in the first place. But, he is just gambling. He may have gotten lucky and knocked you out, but more often than not you will beat him. You'll get him next time. You just need to be patient.

Playing Texas Holdem online at the "free" tables is very much like this as well. In fact, it can be even more frustrating. At times, you will run into players that go all-in on every hand. All-in ... All-in ... All-in until you just want to scream. They do this because they have nothing to lose since there is no money at stake. When this happens, the best thing to do is leave the table before your temper flares to the point of explosion. At the "money" tables you won't see this type of play. However, you may still routinely find yourself in hands with 7 or 8 callers before the flop. So, what can you do?

First of all, you want to tighten up your starting hands requirements. With a large number of players in every pot, the likelihood that someone will make a better hand than you increases. If you are in with a Q-J offsuit, you may feel pretty good if there are no pairs on the board, no straight or flush draw, and a Queen is the highest card. But with 8 players in the hand, someone could have made 2 pair or better and will soon take your money. To help prevent this, you want to be sure you have a very good hand going in like an A-Q suited. Second, when you do have a good starting hand, bet it. You probably would have just limped in with your Q-J offsuit, but can feel much better about you're A-Q suited. When you make a pre-flop bet, players will think twice before putting in more chips with a hand like J-3. Finally, as the community cards are revealed and you know your hand is best, make them pay. If the other players like to bet their money, let them do it when you are calling the shots. When you have the goods, try throwing in a bet a little higher than what you think other players should be willing to call and you just may find that players cant wait to give you their money.

Texas Holdem is a game that you can learn to play well. But, learning how to play against all types of different players with different levels of skill is critical. Just remember, the looser they play, the tighter your call. In the end, you will find yourself winning more and being frustrated less.