You have to have the ability to sit down at any money or free poker table, online or live and study your opponents. I do believe patience is the key ingredient when it comes to interpreting players and the most vital stage is when the game starts.

Why you might ask?
This provides you with you an opportunity to settle-back and take mental notes on the player's actions. This is valuable during the first 30 minutes of a free texas holdem game in particular as quite a lot of players like to go all in and hope they win the pot. I myself will only call these players with a high pair, or suited low connectors because I've played them before, and they will go all in with any two hand cards given.

What Do You Need To Read?

The notes I suggest you take during the first half an hour or if moved to a new table in any money or free texas hold em game are quite simple.

Determine which players are playing conservative and which ones are playing loose.

Those who are playing loose can potentially bet on almost every hand and call just about anything.You will find this a lot in free texas holdem games

People that are playing conservative will keep folding until they get the cards in hand they want or any pairs of AA's, KK's, QQ's, JJ's.

How can you tell if they are Bluffing?
This can be difficult if you have not been watching the game as can happen a lot with free texas holdem or if you are playing multiple online games at the same time.

If you have been watching the game you should have more of a feeling as to who might be bluffing..

For instance:

When you have an ace and king of spades you'll be feeling good about your whole situation. You are waiting for the other player to check or bet, to your surprise the player bets 400 chips when the pot is at 120 chips.

So you call the player and on the flop lands Queen of spades, Jack of Spades, and ten of hearts. The other player goes all-in in order to make you think he/she has the winning hand. You already know you got it won so you call the player's bluff and go on to win.

That is very obvious but if you are facing a more conservative player then they might try to buy you in by betting low not over the pot before the flop and after. These Players understand what they are doing and most likely will have a full house against your ace high straight. Here is where your experience comes into play…have you marked who is loose and who is conservative?

Handy Game and Player Reading Tips

1) Players who take too long and hold back are attempting to bluff you into thinking they have nothing and wait for you to make a bet worth calling. (Note: in free texas holdem the player may very well be taking too long because he/she is playing multiple games.) Filter these players out as this might be a habit for them.

2) Be wary of players who anticipate until the last second and raise you all-in. They are attempting to buy the pot with a decent pair hoping you do not have any aces in your hand!

3) Everyone knows a chip bully. Every table has one. The only way to knock a chip bully off his expensive chair is not to become troubled by his/her large chip stacks. If you have it, go for it. Quite possibly, he/she is bluffing because, they want to pilfer the pot or blinds.

All Players Have Habits.

And from habits develop betting patterns - But What patterns might they form?

A bad habit (for them) you will see occasionally is that some players will lose a large chunk of their chip stack. They get annoyed because they've taken a nasty loss but rather than cut their losses choose to keep going, often all-in until they wipeout totally or earn back some chips (rare!). These players have given up and gone on "tilt". The best thing to do is to call them when the time is right. So have patience and you'll nail them 100%.

Some players are extremely hard to read because they Know they are being read and so are always varying their strategy. They will repeat themselves at some point but these patterns are very hard to spot. These players will take up a lot of your time! When you can read players like these..well you are probably playing WSOP!

I hope this article will help you fine tune your skills and has given you some ideas you can use at the tables. Every player can be read but if you cannot read players you will make poker impossible for yourself!

I know this can be very tough to start with. Reading players especially online is very difficult. As such I advise you start out with lots of practice on one of the better free texas hold em sites before moving to micro then low stakes and beyond.