My dilemma

[ToyMachine22122]

Alright, well, I just played a game today and tried some new stuff that I learned from here. I played a lot more conservatively. As far as my friends were concerned, unreasonably conservatively. According to you guys (and it makes sense to me too), it's the only smart way to play; only call the blinds with hands you're confident in.
But the problem with this is, now if I call the blinds, and a couple face cards come up on the flop, most of the time they're outta there because they know how conservative I play compared to them, and they know there's a great chance I'm holding two facecards. This can be a good thing, since it makes it easy to steal blinds if I don't have much of a hand, but when I do catch trips or two pair on the flop I can rarely get anything out of it because they all know I probably have them beat. Same thing happens if 3 of a suit come up; they assume there's a good chance I have the Ace of that suit plus some other card of that suit and fold to even tiny bets.
Conversely, if no facecards come up on the flop, and especially when there's 3 different suits, they know it's really unlikely that I've got anything and can easily bully me out.
What should I do?

[martini]

You gotta lose your tight reputation. Bluff once in a while. And if you get everyone to fold with a bluff, show your cards anyway. You have to advertize that you're a loose player. When you win with a tight hand, don't show if you don't have to. Leave them guessing if that was one of your bluffs. You have to throw a few hands once in a while so you can win more in the future.

[mooseontheloose]

Also, if you're not slowplaying any of those sets, etc. you may want to give it a try.

EX. They think you're waiting for a great hand, say you come in with 8 8 and the board is Q82 rainbow. You can assume you're ahead but if you slowplay, they may think you've got AK or something which would make you pretty weak in their eyes. Check to them and see what they do, if you're sure they'll fold to your bet you can wait until you're more certain they will call, or even check-raise if they make a move and you want to protect.

I'm no expert, but from what I could tell it seemed like you were betting everytime you had a hand, so this would help if you're not already incorporating it.

[ToyMachine22122]

I tried slowplaying it. There was a play very similar to what you just described where I had pocket 6's and the flop was (i think) A K 6. I checked, and so did everyone else. Turn comes up a 2. Checks around again. River is a 10. So at this point I make a modest bet, $2, which is double the big blind, so not terribly much. Everyone folds. And one of them was holding 6T. He said he thought I had big slick...ugh!

The lose the rep advice sounds good though. I'm more a semi-bluff guy usually (I like to have at least a half-decent hand to back it up, like a middle pair or something) but I'll start trying a few all-out bluffs. Hopefully it'll work after a while; I'm sure they'll just fold to the first few.

By the way, this wasn't a big problem (seeing as I did make second place today for a gain of $15), but more a minor nuisance. Thanks a lot for all the help guys, this place has already done quite a bit for my game