#1 all the way. The way I see NL is that it thrives on implied odds. If I can see the flop for 1 or 2 BB and make a hand against a player with 200 BB in front of him, well then I'm getting 200:1 implied odds for my hand. At the limits I play it is very easy to get people all in when you make a hand with low cards, especially if you are against AA or KK. The reason I like strategy #1 is that it goes against the "correct" way to play in limit games, and at the NL stakes I play most people are either generally poor players or so-so limit players. So when a guy raises 3BB with AA and I call from the button with 57s and flop 346 rainbow, he's more than willing to go all in with me. Not to mention breaking someone with Jc5c will do wonders for your table image. People will be scared to get involved with you on trash flops.
Pre-flop, I'm more likely to call raises with low suited connectors and gappers, but I will fold hands like AQ, AJ and AT (unless suited) KQ,KJ, and JQ. Reason being is that if the board comes out low cards, I may have made a hand against his big cards. But if I called with the aformentioned hands and hit top pair, how can I know my kicker is good or he doesn't have an overpair like AA? AQ vs AK can be a big money loser, but 67s vs AK will either be a big winner or a get out cheap hand.
Strategy #1 necessitates tight-aggressive post-flop play. More than that, it really, really requires you to play a good post-flop game. You really need to know how to play the board and the players once the cards fall.
If I have big hands pre-flop, of course I raise. I do this not to build pots, I don't care about building pots, I want my opponents whole stack. I either want the blinds, or I want to get heads up with a hand that figures to be a favorite. If I raise pre-flop, I'm going to bet the pot on the flop if called. I want to take it down. With big cards I really just want to steal blinds. This gives me bets to play smaller cards that I can use to make hands against opponents later.
As far as strategy #2, most people who I see play that way overdo it, and although they can force bad players to make bad calls out of frustration, a good player will pick a spot and then do some serious damage. I see it all the time, especially players who go all-in almost every hand. They can only jam pots for so long before somebody makes a hand against them, and of course the will push one time too many and get broke. I was playing against a guy at $10 NL who was jamming almost every pot. I tried playing back at him one time and he moved in on me. I couldn't call. It took me two hours, but finally I made a hand against him and busted him.
