how can you tell if someone is changing gears at your table?

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CashTaker

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The articles I've read online say that it's good to change gears to keep the opponents guessing. How do you know if your opponent has changed gears other than by seeing their cards at showdown?

Is it possible to tell by their postflop action in certain kinds of spots like if they are drawing for a flush or oesd?
 
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AlexTheOwl

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This is a great question.

If someone is changing gears due to table conditions, you can sometimes guess that they are playing differently from normal.

For example:
I am in the button and have been stealing very frequently.
The BB rarely 3-bets, but he 3-bets me this time. I assume he has a premium hand.
The next time I steal, I am successful.
Then I try to steal again, and the BB 3-bets.
Part (just part!) of my decision to fold, call or 4-bet is the idea that the BB might be 3-betting with weaker hands than usual, because he knows I am stealing with many weak hands.

But If someone who rarely raises pre-flop suddenly makes a big raise pre-flop with a weak hand, how can I tell that he's randomly decided to raise light to mix up his play? I can't!
 
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Rational Madman

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The answer is you can't know without seeing showdowns for certain since they could be having a bad-hand streak or a good-hand streak so their lack of play or high frequency of play can be due to an unusually strong or weak series of hands.

You can't know this for a fact until a couple of showdowns. It's less important, in my opinion, to know the specific style of the opponent but rather to know their comprehension of bet size. Are they numbed to big bets or very sensitive to bet size? To me that tells me a lot more because a tight player who is quite numb to bet size is just as weak as a loose player who likes to bet small and will fold to big reraises frequently their flaws are just accessed by being tight to the looser player or loose to the tight one more often and being willing to risk a little more per pot than you otherwise would, especially if it's just you and them in the hand.

On the other hand, the other side of things: A bet-numbed loose player or a bet-sensitive tight player what you do with them is you smallball constantly as you can't profit since they'll wait to trap you with your big bets.
 
IPlay

IPlay

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You can't. Just play a balanced strategy against them
 
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