Rules of Texas Hold em         

THE BASICS

So you've played a few texas hold em tournaments and you have a good idea of the good starting hands in holdem, but maybe you're not winning as much as you like?   If you find yourself slipping further and further back in the rankings as the poker tournament progresses, then chances are you are playing too conservatively.  
Don't worry it's just one of many hurdles you'll have to get over to improve your poker game.  

 Before you start to make conservative texas holdem play a bad habit, we've made a list of reasons why conservative play is wrong:

• Your opponents will start to read you like a book.  If the other players spot that you don't enter many hands then they'll know the hands you do take part in will be ones where you're representing a monster hand.  What will they do then? Fold of course and you'll lose your chance of winning a big pot.  This is true even in low stakes online tourneys.  
• If you play too conservatively you'll never get enough premium hands to build your pot. This, coupled with the fact that players will shy away when you do and you'll be no better off than if you'd stolen the blinds with a pre-flop bluff.
• Your opponents won't respect you and more importantly they won't fear you.  Instilling fear in other texas holdem players is by far the most fun you can have in a poker game next to winning.  Instilling fear in other players by playing aggressively will force the other players into making tough decisions.
• conservative texas holdem play can get you into a major losing streak and make you question every move you make. You'll stop playing instictively and end up folding hands you would have otherwise won and eventually as you get so far down in your chips you'll judgement will get worse and worse and you'll throw the tourney away long before you get into the paying positions.

Now that you know conservative play is the wrong way to go, check out our aggressive playing tips in texas holdem