[sweetjazz]

There are two reasons why it is right to play more hands in games against tougher opponents.

1) The tighter a game, the greater the chance to take down a pot with a bet. As your folding equity increases, more hands become playable. (Note that this does not apply in a typical low limit game where players go much too far with their weaker hands.)

2) The FTOP tells us that how well we and our opponents do is based on how closely decisions mirror those that would be made if the other player's cards could be seen. The more hands we play, the harder it is for our opponent to distinguish between the possible hands we can have. This increases the likelihood we can induce our opponent to make a FTOP mistake. (Note that the opposition has to be good enough to read hands before this is applicable.)

A key thing to note in the tough games is that it can be sometimes correct to play a hand that is slightly -EV if it increases the EV of your future +EV hands enough to offset what you are giving up on that hand. Of course, that doesn't mean openraising with 72o UTG is a good idea, nor is routinely 3-betting middle position raises with small suited connectors.