Home Tournement...PLEASE HELP!

Still a novice, but diciplined.
I play weekly at a friends house.
15 people usually, MTT Style (only 2 tables, going into 1 after 9 players left)
$500 starting chips, $20 buy in.
Starts 10/20 blinds and then progresses upwards every 15 minutes (which with these joking bastards lasts about 5 - 6 hands).
Wide range of players from very TAGG, to very strong, to horrible madmen.
Been playing TAGG as hell, though I always find myself shortstacked towards the later rounds. I always make the final 5, but never am chip leader. I play my hands strongly, but if I dont get a monster within the first three levels, I find I am left relying too much on luck because the increased blinds are adding a lot of pressure. Camping out for a good hand, is killing me. Even when I open up in late position and play suited conecters.

I really want to win consistantly at this game. PLEASE HELP!

With a home game atmosphere, blinds will go up so quick that you need to treat it like a turbo tourney. No matter what, a lot of luck will be involved, which is why home games tend to be played week after week (if more skill was involved, the worse players would stop playing becuase they never win). Have fun with your boys, if you are there to show your poker prowess, this type of game really probably isn't for you.

Appreciate that...I know sound advice when I hear it.

Love the site by the way...certainly the most friendly and intelligent one I have seen.

Any direction you can push me at all to help put the odds in my favor. Tight? Loose? Aggreesive, counterplay?

How about suggesting a new blind structure, so that way you can actually sit down and play some poker? Maybe instead of blinds going up every x minutes, you have blinds going up every time someone is eliminated.

Most guys at a home game don't have enough patience to play good, solid poker for a long period of time and they don't really care what the blind levels are to play balls out.

If that doesn't work, then you just need to realize that once the blinds become a significant chunk of your stack, you need to go into push/fold mode and hope to pick up blinds and/or get lucky.

It sounds similar to my home game

As chardrian said - focus on the fun part of it more then consistently beating it.

I dont like the idea of changing the blinds everytime someone is eliminated, since you cant have a game plan when the blinds can double every hand

You should may increase the blinds every 10 hands or so.

From my experience in my home tourney the most improtant thing is adjusting yourself every hand to the stack sizes and their relation to the blinds. At one point or another you will have to go to push/fold mode, and you need to pick your battles based on the opponents - which player can be pushed off pots, who is always chasing etc...

More starting chips would help too. Your setup is worse that PartyPoker's. I use $1000 and start at 10/20.