If you know your opposition, it definitely changes how you play. If you know them well, then you probably know their tendencies. The problem is, if you know their tendencies, chances are that they are aware that you know this, which could lead to them playing poker differently than you expect. The same applies for your game. If you never change up your style, your regular opponents are going to catch on and start taking advantage of you.

Recently I played in an online SNG with a bunch of players that I regularly play live with. One of my friends plays poker online a lot, and uses training sites. He virtually mimics top pros, which has proved to be profitable for him. I’ve talked with him a lot about sit and go strategy and we’re both pretty knowledgeable on what is considered good aggressive play. So the question is, how should I play against someone who knows the same stuff I do?

When we got down to 5 handed, he was directly to my left; when I was in the small blind, he was in the big blind. These are classic sit and go rivals. People were playing really tight, but I still didn’t want to make a 3x raise and have to fold to the re-steal he was likely to make. I started making 2.5x raises that were being respected and folded to – on the occasion that I was played back at, I could escape without losing too much. When the hands were folded to us in the blinds, I began to limp habitually. I did this about 6 times in a row. I would limp in for 200 and all but a few times he would 3x it up to 600. I would promptly fold. Now I wasn’t doing this with absolute garbage. I did it with hands I wouldn’t mind seeing a cheap flop with, but knowing I was donating an extra small blind in most cases to set up a weak malleable image. I wanted him to think it was easy to steal my limps. Finally I caught a hand….A, 3 off suit. I know this isn’t much of a hand, but knowing that he would re-steal as light as he does, I felt ace high was a monster against him. So I did what I always did, I limped into his BB. He raised to 600 and I shoved for about 4800, having him covered by about 1000. He insta-called with K, 7. I didn’t expect this, I thought he would fold most of his any-2 hands, but I guess he was playing a little meta game himself in thinking that my 4-bet was with air and his King high was ahead. So, my online poker plan worked perfectly.