First, I'm no poker pro but I'll try to add my two-cents in. I think some people can make a mistake by not playing the game at hand. Every game can be different depending on who's sitting at the table. Sometimes you'll have a nice tight game, other games will have crazy betters throwing off your routine.

If you cannot adapt quickly to the strategies at hand, you're gonna loose.

That being said, I believe a good strategy is to evaluate the loose players and see what cards they end up with. Are they searching for cards, do they make it, do they bluff or are they just terrible card players? We have a regular game where one guy always fishes for the river card. More often than not, he will continue matching bets just to see the river card. Sometimes he gets lucky, sometimes he ends up with nothing. Knowing he is willing to take the chance and fish for a card allows me to play against his bets. Typically, this will reveal the strength of his hand. You can win some nice size pots by playing against the bets of loose players. Aggressive players, however, are more tricky and I believe playing your cards will typically win out.

If you only wanna play a game that is tight and "by-the-book" then you should play in tourneys with those caliber of people. But that is not usually a reality of most home-style games. If you're gonna play with people of all skill levels, you have to adapt and play to the strengths and weaknesses available.

But hey, that's just me.