Chip Leak

[Insomnia]

I play in a regular weekly home game, and we have a range from 5-8 players playing. The buyin is usually very low, and this is a very freindly game. Recently ive hit a slump, but its nothing new, ive gone through many slumps before. Although the odd thing is in many of the games during my slump, in the first orbit i will usually pick up a good hand and get decent action wiht it and win a nice pot. Usually about 1/5 to 1/3 of the starting chips in one hand. After this, i usually find that i will continually lose chips in small pots, or i will run into a monster when i make a strong hand(trips, top 2 pair etc). I know you cant avoid monsters, but What range of hands should i be playing when i have chip lead. should i go tighter or looser.
The quality of the players is roughly equal to me, although i have a stronger background of basic poker strategy(through reading!). the top 2 get payed, 2nd taking his buy in back, and first getting the rest.

[snapfc01]

when you have the lead you should usually tighten up if anything... but in doing so you should be more aggressive... when you do get in pots raise and bet don't get in pots and keep calling for bad draws (gut draws and stuff) just b/c you have the chips.

and in a tournament like that always go for 1st... when you are down to 3-4 players be willing to take a lot of coin flips if winning will give you a good shot at first... b/c getting 1st once is better then 3 or 4 2nd...

[JP Rocks]

That is probably the simplest, but best advice I have ever recieved wrt home poker. I have a problem similar to the original poster, and was getting really frustrated, but after reading your advice yesterday, I came home $70 up from my weekly $20 game. I dont think my cards were that much better than usual, but I just concentrated on playing solid poker, and not bluffing my stack away. Thank you.