[Yawkey]

My friends started this poker night at their apartment, it originally started as dealers choice but with a little nudging from me they have switched to pure NL Texas Hold'em. It's only a $5 buy-in (we're poor college students) and I walk away with money every week, but the problem is the game is just so dull. There are two problems, the first major problem is that none of the regulars are gamblers. No one pushes the limits, we allow re-buys and maybe one person will re-buy a night. If someone is up and their stack begins to dwindle they cash-out and leave. The other factor is that none of the players there have even a half decent understanding of poker. What usually ends up happening is I sit back and fold nearly every hand until I have a real monster, bet huge and get paid off as nearly everyone calls.

As you can imagine playing at this game really isn't about the money having the HUGE buy-in of $5, so how do I improve the quality of the game? I thought inviting them to play at my place in a game with some half decent players would be a good start. Let me tell you that was wrong, one guy came and was cleaned out so fast, it was absolutly brutal (I'm sure it wasn't a fluke, I was having flashbacks to Mike Caro's Poker Tells video whenever he played, btw I made him pay for it too). Now they refuse to play with us card sharks.

Do I point them to this site, or loan them a book, or talk about starting hands? Even play after the flop is terrible, they are calling stations trying to slow play any inking of a hand. How do I make this game an interesting match of wits?