I've played about 100,000 hands since I started playing poker a couple of years ago and I've probably lost about $1500.I started on Poker Stars and then 888 but the Eastern Europeans seem to dominate these sites and I couldn't win against them,I now play on Party Poker but my results are much the same i.e I lose consistently with the odd winning streak.I've read numerous poker books and online articles but that has added to my frustration as the more I read and study poker I've concluded that the various authors contradict each other with their advice.Some will say never bluff if playing online low stakes games whilst others will advise the opposite.Some will say to only play the best hands whilst others say to mix it up so you are not too predictable to your opponents.
Am I correct to conclude that provided you don't play like a maniac it really just comes down to luck in the end?
Finally,I really enjoy playing poker but want to win and I don't think I'm stupid so is there any hope for me?

Depending on where you live dropping $1500 on something you enjoy isn’t so bad. An avid golfer could easily spend $10k or more over the course of two years.

Poker absolutely is a skill game, and skilled enough players should win in the long run. It’s unfortunate that there is a lot of bad poker advice out there. If you really enjoy the game then maybe pony up for a training/coaching site like RIO or upswing. You can also get advice in these forums.

Its just practice and studying. You might be studying the wrong things, or using the wrong material. What stakes do you play online? Start at 2nl and go from there.

you have to play the opponent. advice like never bluffing or raising a lot of hands is fairly useless. against some opponents you bluff. against others you don't.

Start at 2NL and play one table and look for the best table to play at where you think you can exploit your opponents.

Prepare to play live because thats where the fish are.

maybe take up 2PLO instead of NL.

so i guess a question i have and probably OP too is how do you exploit a table full of nits?

How do you think you should exploit them?

i think maybe call a wider range of hands in position against them and if they check on flop cbet always. maybe call some of their flop bets on certain boards and see what they do on the turn. try to find spots to raise them postflop on turns/rivers.

i mean i never really play against nits as my population of players i go against are usually very loose players. the thing about nits is all exploitation is postflop play since preflop they're not giving too much action on hands (ya you can steal their blinds obviously) but postflop is where you have to win against them.

Think about what you're saying. You beat nits by calling their strong preflop raises with weaker hands?

"My opponent only plays AA, so I'm going to play A9o and try and beat him with my 6.2% equity against his range, because I will make money by losing 94% of the time".

Forgive the sarcasm, but you have it backwards. You can steal blinds from nits, but you should NOT give them action when they enter a pot. You beat your opponents by playing better hands than them, not worse ones.

ya i really didnt think it through so exploiting them is really just not playing against them. i feel like grinding profit against a table full of them would be very difficult. i dont think they're that prevalent at micros though surely the only reason they exist is because nitty strategy works to have a small winrate by players who are unsuspecting victims to their ranges.

i think some of it too is i play 6 max and nits almost always sit 9 max tables. last time i sat at a 9 max table it was so nitty i only played a few rotations and could tell it wasnt a good table.

It depends. With deep enough stacks board coverage becomes a thing and it's a big problem to only have AA. A wider range will have an advantage.

I know I brought a similar argument up before and didn't prove it. I believe it wouldn't be horribly difficult to prove for a simple range like pocket pairs, so maybe I'll work on that to convince you.

Online poker is nonsense without room mates who talk and play poker.
playing nits will tilt the **** out of you.

Playing hands that have implied odds to stack the nits if they will stack of with top pair hands. noone is just playing AA and KK.

Of course I don't have any clue about what you have read in the past, but since poker is absolutely, in the long run, a game of skill, I think that the best approach right now would be to start from scratch and be humble and honest enough with yourself to start from the bottom once again.
For NLHE 6max I would definitely suggest you to read "The Grinder's Manual", which starts from the basics and goes all the way up to more complex concepts. Is also totally focused to the online game, so it gives also advice to how to play according to the HUD.
Then, do a lot of hand reviews and if you have some cash to invest, it would definitely be helpful to get a coach