I like playing roleplaying games, like Pathfinder, 3rd to 4th edition DnD, or what have you. Usually because nobody else wants to, I end up being the GM for these games.
I have good story structure, plot development and hooks, but the one thing that makes all the others sort of fall short is that I completely suck when it comes to combat; the build-up of an evil plot and the threat of the Villains fall apart when the resulting combat is a piece of cake to the players despite the CR calculations, which means to me I'm not using the NPCs correctly or to their fullest potential.
Specifically for Pathfinder, what tips and tricks are there to providing challenge for the PC's? Links, Book recommendations, and personal advice completely welcome.
This is a good series of articles that discusses one the pitfalls DMs often fall in when designing fights: The solo "boss" that gets destroyed in one round to saves or surround-and-pound.
http://angrydm.com/2010/04/the-dd-boss-fight-part-1/
Another tip that sometimes plays out nicely is if my players are fighting a monster from the bestiary I often pull up the 4th edition monster manual and compare it to one of those creatures. Then I'll often hijack a power or effect or two to make the combat more interesting than just straight attack rolls back and forth.
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It takes significant amount of time until you become good at combat tactics. The most helpful part if you feel like reading it is "Combat" section of PF rules. Total defense, aid another, flank, ready action; these things can spice up combat and make it more challenging if you know how to use them.
The CR rules are the correct as they can be until higher levels, however watch out for some unique monsters like ghast or shadow. These are always deadly and some monsters are greater challenge even though they have higher CR.
High CMB monsters are fun to use with CMB checks. They almost always hit trip or disarm attack and it gives suprised looks on players faces when you tell them that attack roll is CMB roll, not against their beafed up AC.
There is plenty of stuff really, but you learn best through gameplay. My first villain was CR 4 or CR 5 cleric who was 1 shoted by evoker wizard. So, you don't know until you try.
Malag
Let me suggest The Guide To Creating Challenging Encounters.
It wont help you with tactics specifically, but it will help you avoid many of the pitfalls of bad encounter design. If you do this part well, it becomes less necessary to find the absolute best tactics because you have designed an encounter well from the beginning.
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There's also a topic about particularly deadly creatures.
As for number of monsters: don't use too few, and not too many. If you use just one boss, the PCs have too many actions compared to the BBEG.
If you use too many, it can go wrong two ways. Either you adhere to CR but spread it out too thin: each invidivual monster can't really hurt the PCs. Or the PCs get overwhelmed by superior numbers.