I first started playing poker on a whim. Like many, I saw the World Series of Poker on television, thought it was interesting, and decided to see what I could find out about the game. After an internet search, I found an online poker room, something I had never heard of before, and joined the ranks of the play money fish. I began to figure things out and learned basic strategy. Like many beginning players, I went from playing just about any two cards to playing overly tight and leaning on starting hand charts to help make my decisions. But, problems resulted from that. When I was playing against scads of loose players, nobody respected my raises, I kept facing at least half the table post-flop, and inevitably, there were many times when someone sucked out on me. I still run into these situations all the time and I'm sure many of you do too. Thus, I thought this would be a good time to present some basic tips on how to deal with a crazy table when you seem to be the only sane one playing. I'm not reinventing the wheel here, but for me, getting back to basics is a ...