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Step 1
Rely on your "Ace in the hole." The one or two cards you may be holding are critical to your strategy in community games. If you hold an ace or king, you may want to push through to the end, but if you hold a 2 and a 5, with KQ9 on the table, you'll want to fold (unless you hold a flush).
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Step 2
Bow out early. With a low hand like the one above, or even a hand you don't feel super confident about, you'll want to avoid getting caught in the many rounds of betting that can occur in community games. If a dealer calls betting rounds after turning over each card, don't stay in with low hands and get in over your head. When the pot is dramatically raised, that would be a good time to release your hand.
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Step 3
Don't make early folding an identifiable pattern, and don't fold prematurely. If you do have a series of bad hands, you may want to sacrifice a little money just to keep the others from thinking you're scared. Don't fold before the pot is raised; stay in for rounds of checked betting or rounds where the bet is only raised by small amounts. Stay in until you feel you are getting sucked into a betting war and then throw down your hand.
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Step 4
Count cards. It's easier to count cards in community games because several cards of each hand are prominently on the table for long periods of time. Use this to your advantage. If the last hand featured AAAK on the table, you know your ace is the only one left in the deck. Use that knowledge to run the table.
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Step 5
Watch how other players react to the same cards. In community games, evaluating each player's betting strategy on sometimes very similar hands will give you a great window into what's behind their poker face. Since psychology is so much of poker, that information can be really valuable. Keep track of player's bets in early hands to guess at what they're holding later in the game.
