Pick your Opponents and Pick your Spots

Whether it's a cash game or a tournament, always remember that there is no need to wage war on everyone over everything at the same time... the primary objective of the game is to gather those precious chips... and in order to do that, you need to get involved in the right hands... a "right hand" is when you have some kind of advantage over your opponent(s)... there are only four advantages you can have in any particular hand,

1- you are the "better" player...
2- you have better position
3- you have better cards
4- you have much more chips

I put them in that order for a reason... of all the things in the world, I would take skill over anything... if you have the better read on your opponent and have the heart to pull the trigger at the right moment, sooner or later you will prevail...

with equal or slightly lesser cards, position will be key... it's easier to raise or bluff in late position...

good (or better than your opponent) cards are always nice to have... but you gotta play em right...

and it can never hurt to have a big chip stack... you can afford to make mistakes, your opponent can not...

In any given hand, you wanna have as many advantages as possible... there is absolutely no need to get involved with a big stack who has been making plays at everyone, when you have a K-J off suit or a pair of 6s... wait for a better hand... why take the risk unless it's absolutely necessary...

what you ought to be doing instead, is trying to get involved in as many hands as possible, with the weak player or the short stack.... specially when you have a decent hand...
pick off on the smaller enemies first and destroy them completely... not only will you get chips, you will also build an image of ruthlessness, which will come in handy when you go against the big boys...
and how do you spot the weaker player... ? as the saying goes, if you don't know who the sucker is, YOU are the sucker... (had to throw that in...)
on a more serious tone, look for the guys who are obviously out of place... the old dude avoiding eye contact, the drunk kid who's been up for 35 hours, the guy who's hands shake when he has A-Q, the lady trying to fit in with the boys, the tourist who's just trying it out and buys in for the absolute minimum (or close to that) every 45 minutes...

Don't take this to mean that I am asking you to avoid confrontation... just that you should know what your strength is in each particular situation... why do you need to bluff the bluffer, after all that's his strength... let him bluff you and wait for the hand and nail him in one punch i.e. slow play a monster; play it the same way you hesitantly played top pair the last three times and he bluffed you two out of those three times...