[sweetjazz]

I would say to tighten up just a smidge, mostly when there's a good chance you'll be OOP against an aggressor with a marginal holding. Try to be careful about spewing bets, but if you are going to spew, do so more with made hands than draws against most opponents. For example, CO open raises and you defend your BB with Q9. Flop comes Q72 and you check/raise, CO 3 bets. Normally, this should mean that you are behind a lot, but in these games you're usually ahead. So sometimes cap flop and lead the turn. Other times call and check/raise most turns. Rarely should you just call down at this point. Of course, you'll run into better hands a fair amount, so there's a lot of variance to this play, but against the right opponents it is a winning play.

I think the key difficulty is #3 that you mentioned -- players who value bet relentlessly, especially coupled with some basic hand reading to know WHEN to value bet. This is what makes games tougher and drives down profits.

Most of all, just go back over how you're opponents are playing and think -- a la the back of TOP -- about what is the best way to exploit what they are doing. Distinguish between those players who are recklessly aggressive and those whose mixed strategy is hard to exploit.