I've heard for the longest time that the way to exploit loose players is by playing tighter. And the way to exploit tight players is to play looser.

This cannot possibly be correct. If we observe two players, one loose and one tight, we cannot simultaneously think that both players are taking advantage of the other. One of them must have the edge - but who?

I believe that it's correct to continue to play as tight or as loose are you are playing, but to pick up on particular weaknesses in your opponent rather than their VPIP. For example if an opponent players too tight on a paired flop, you should bluff often. Or if you opponent plays too loose on very draw heavy boards you should rarely bluff. Thoughts?

That idea is very dated. Where have you been?

Back in the old days nits used to just play premium hands and setmine and then start betting big when they hit to take advantage of loose players who were typically bad. It did of course work, but it was never anywhere near optimal. It was just an easy strategy to execute even if you weren't very good at poker.

At the same time, if you saw the table was was very nitty, you could open up your range a ton in late position and steal the blinds with impunity. Again, it was easy to execute and profitable even if you suck at poker.

If you're good at poker though you should be looking to play pretty wide ranges against bad players who are typically playing even wider ranges and still play wide ranges against nitty players who aren't very good post flop since you can read hands better than they can and will have an edge on them postflop.

That is why a good lag is going to make more money than a good tag imo.

As you move up in stakes however, and players ranges gravitate closer to something resembling optimal it gets harder to play looser and get away with it.

You need to take other things in to consideration as well, like, how often they fold to cbets is a huge factor. If he is playing very loose preflop but has a high fold to cbet you should raise almost 100% of buttons against that player because it will be profitable. On the other hand if he isn't folding to a lot of cbets you might want to tighten up your range because it will be very hard to assign him to a range on the turn.

Kinda just need to think about how you can exploit a guys tendencies specifically.