At my level of play, the $25NL and $50NL, I am basically sitting back waiting waiting for a monster. I consider a monster a hand with 1)decent starting cards, think AA through to 45suited 2) a loose agressive opponent willing to get stacked 3)a good flop (read strong draw or better). Once all these conditions are satisfied, I usually make some money, unless they hit their 4 outer on the river.
Now, rarely do all of these conditions occur at the same time, and in the mean time I am losing money to blinds, raises and c-bets on flops that missed me, missed draws etc.
Is this how cash game poker works? If so, I m not sure that I am a winning player in the long run (yes I have been on a cooler the past week). At the higher limits, condition 2 (an opponent willing to be stacked) is much less likely to be satisfied as often as all the other conditions are. And in the unlikely event that all conditions are satisfied at the same time, and you double, will that make up for all the lost blinds, raises, draws and bad beats etc?
Based on this reasoning, it doesnt seem like being tight aggressive will really win in the long run in our loose maniac internet games. I guess I came to the conclusion that you need to be loose agressive to make any money at the cash games, but this requires much more skill as you have to know when you are beat (and how can you truely know when you are playing against a name), and be able to get away from marginal hands.
I personally dont think I have the skill or the cojones to play LAG at even the micro stakes, and for this reason I think I should stick to tournement play, where there are almost always players willing to push because of the rapidly increasing blinds.
For all those successful higher limit cash game players, are you guys LAGs? How did you develop your LAG game, as there doesnt seem to be a good 'manual' on NL cash game play. Or am I completely off, TAG is the way to play, and I am just pissed that I am getting owned.