My favorite type of Hold 'Em game condition is a very loose, very aggressive game. By this I mean the kind of game where seven or eight players see every flop, and it's almost always raised before the flop; most of the time there are four bets pre-flop. The main characteristics are that the flop is almost never checked around, most flops are raised, and three-player showdowns are the norm.

In a tighter or more typical game, the most common mistake players make is playing too many hands. That's not the case in a really wild and woolly game. In this type of game, the most common mistake is playing top pair and overcards more aggressively than they should be played. Because of the looseness of the game, drawing hands can profit greatly from that kind of overaggressiveness.

This is because the odds on the bets for a strong drawing hand are almost always greater than the odds of making the hand. This is a great source of profit. The value of suited cards, particularly suited connectors and suited Aces, goes way up in this type of extreme game. Play suited cards, and, as we discuss in the next chapter, if you flop a draw with them, play the draw very aggressively