[holyfield5]

Sorry this is all wrong -

Poker is played by using the information you have gleamed off your opponents to make decisions. Playing tough players and playing "fish" is pretty equal in the skill gaining area. You need to be equally skilled at playing against both because there will be times when its 3 handed and you need to know the reasoning behind their actions BOTH of their actions. You need to know how fish play and how experts play and how the thought processes change in different situations.

Basically you want to see everything, you want to have run into every type of situation against every type of player so you have experience and know capabilities(ranges) of that player type etc. If you are in a hand with a fish and an expert, the situation isnt really any tougher or easier, its just the same standard question, what ranges you can put each player on based on how you know they think and how the hand has played out, what will they give you credit for and how will they react to your actions etc etc.

Skilled players have a different set of ranges you can put them on thats pretty much the only difference. To be "good" at poker means to be a profitable player, the most important factor in that is your ability to table select and extract from the bad players while not giving up too much to the good ones.

In fact i believe playing tougher players will make you get better more slowly, as their moves will be harder to decipher and you might incorrectly peg their thought process without enough experience.

cliff notes - playing tough players wont make you better faster, the poker knowledge is what is important, your variables are different when evaluating what to do against different players skills but the questions are the same.