[FBMike]

In addition to what Buzz said, I would want to know how often you raise on a draw. If you're passive, I assume never. This is wrong.

In a loose O/8 game, you will pick up lots of hangers-on until the river. By looking at opportunities on the flop to thin the field -- when that seems best -- or not making a raise to hope for a re-raise -- when that seems best -- you will make even more money than you do now.

For example, let's say you have various draws to nut hands on the flop with 12 outs. Almost half the time you will make one of those nut draws by the river. Instead of passively waiting for your draw to come in, try concentrating on how you can extract the most money. Often the best way is to raise and get some people that have you beat high or low to fold, increasing your chances to scoop or get 3/4. Other times you'll want to just call and hope for a raise you can re-raise that almost everybody can call, even when all you have is a draw.

The point is you are too readable if you keep waiting for the nuts to bet. That's why I used 12 outs instead of monster draws, which give you even more opportunities to exploit your opponents.

Another upshot of you coming out of your shell and betting with some draws is that you'll fold sometimes on the river, instead of always turning over the nuts. This creates a different image for you than tight-passive. People start calling your bets and increasing your profits.

Once you know they will call bets, but maybe not re-raises, you can manipulate the betting to your maximum advantage.

You can also check and get away with it more, when you really are drawing thin. Non-current-nut hands might be afraid of you check-raising.

So, between Buzz's advice and mine, if you take them to heart and really try to improve, you'll be thrown out of your profitable home game. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I'm kidding. Most home games of bad players, like you are now beating, can take a 10-20% improved flow to you without causing problems. Because you create situations that make big pots, you will often end with 2nd-best stack. That's great, as it looks like the winner just had a lucky night. They never notice you as a regular winner, just not the winner.

Often you can talk about how you sucked out aganst Sean (as a big favorite you don't have to explain), and tell them other examples of how you got lucky, when you are #1.