Need some hold'em help

So, me and about 5 friends play a regular cash game, we used to play tournament style, but they decided to switch. I was a strong advocate of switching to cash game, but now it seems ridiculous, because:

Blinds are .25/.50 even though most players have $20, except one guy that always brings $30.
25-50% somebody raises to $1-3 preflop


What should I do to be able to make more profit? At the moment I limp in wherever possible, and raise when I have a good hand.

the last couple of times we've played it has turned out like this
Starting money---ending
$25----------------$27
$10----------------$10
$20----------------$50
$20-(rebuy $10)(rebuy $5- total $35)----------$0(I got called on two very large bluffs, and had a bad beat on another)

I'm a tight player, and find it really hard to make a lot of money in these games. Should I keep pushing for the .20/.10 blinds, or what are some new play styles I can try out? For some reason they won't change the blinds.

NOTE- the people I play with have not been playing long, neither have I. We're just high school students.

I would put this in the beginner forum, but I think the responses may be too basic.

It's hard to make money playing with the same people all the time, because they learn to read you, you learn to read them, and you wind up playing cards rather than poker. Whoever gets the best cards makes the most money.

Beyond that, I would suggest minimizing your losses by not limping so much, and trying to raise as if you do have a good hand when you don't, in situations where you think nobody else has a good hand either.

The other thing to do is study up on the concept of positional play.

Not really. Many good players browse the beginner forum looking to help. And this is a pretty common beginner problem. Like the #1 beginner complaint is "Oh my god, these people raise like every hand, they're crazy, they never let me see a flop, how do I beat these crazy loose players?"

If your home game is anything like mine, you need to be playing very tight preflop. Your opponents are playing too many hands, and you need to exploit this mistake by playing good hands & playing them hard & fast. If you played nothing by 88+, AJ+, KQ, and just raised at every opportunity preflop, you'd probably show a decent profit.

Yeah, tighten up preflop, and stop limping. Limping isn't so bad if the blinds were, say, $0.05-$0.1 and you had a $30 stack. But when you limp with blinds being a big portion of your stack, it adds up quite quickly.

At my home game, we play $0.05/$0.10, but there's tons of loose money, and most players have $30 in their stack within 45 minutes or so. So that allows you to play looser, and avoid the boredom that tight play in a live format entails.

With only 40bb effective stacks you need to stick to more high card hands and drop more speculative hands such as suited connectors under say TJ and low pocket pairs. You generally wont be getting the implied odds to draw to straights and flushes or sets.

If you are first into the pot raise. Never open limp with the blinds so high.

Basically by keeping the blinds so high they have turned a cash game into a tourney game frozen at mid levels. So as in a tourney with only 40bb stacks if you have top pair good kicker you're going all the way with the hand in most cases.

I play in cash games like you are saynig all the time.Now you said you are playing with beginners so they will probably call with any pair,flush draw,or staight draw.With that said,I like to switch up my play alot more often than i would playing online because you dont know ne body or how they play.Read into body language articles and the actions that they make when they play and bet on hands(even if ur not in the hand).Odds are being newbies to the game they will make the same reactions to big hands and the same reactions to small hands.Any thing from deep breaths(could mean monster hand)or if they are starring u down(could mean that that are weak handed and are hoping u hop out.Everybody plays different,and everybody makes different reactions to different hands.My best advice i could give is to study your oppenents nad read as many articles on this site as u can,Also play as much as you can.every little thing you learn will all go to the big picture of you winning more $.Good Luck and enjoy the game.Bad beats happen to all of us, no matter the skill level,You just have to find ways to recover,Worst thing you can do is force hands that just arent there.Patience my friend,This ga,e demands a lot of it.