Table manipulation
 

Ive read my fair share of theories on how to "read the table" and then play accoring to the relative tight/loose/passive/agressiveness of the table. What I don't like about this theory is im guesing that amongst fairly skilled players playing styles can fluctuate quite a bit. Not just the style difference between player A and player B at any time, but the style difference between player A at time t1 and t2. Where t1 and t2 correspond to different times.

I was wondering if any of you had some tactics for trying to either manipulate the table towards a certain playing style. For example trying to get the perfectly tight player to loosen up with the rest of the table. Essentially trying to manipulate the environment so that there is a fairly consistant style of play amongst the table. Minimizing the variance of styles amongst the table so less memory work is needed for predictions.

It could just be too difficult to do, and dont have any ideas myself, but Im curious if anyone here has attempted to do this..

Re: Table manipulation
 

Basically what you want to do is not force a player to play any specific style, but rather to induce behavior that is conterproductive to their style of play, thus increasing your edge. For example, you want players who bluff to little to bluff even less, and players who bluff to much to bluff even more. David Sklansky talks about this in 'Theory of Poker' in the section entitled 'Stopping and Inducing Bluffs'

Re: Table manipulation
 

You are correct that a good player will vary style enough that it's hard to make useful inferences. When you find yourself in a pot with only good players, you don't figure to make much money anyway, you can be content to play break-even poker. Heads-up against a good player you're not thinking about how loose they are, you're thinking about habits (what kinds of hands to they semi-bluff with, for example, and what do they slow play) and tells.

Paying attention to style is more important at the table level. At a loose table, someone will call you. At a tight table, you can predict people's hands with some accuracy. Individual players will change style either for deception if they're good or out of random mood if they're bad. It's hard to track them because you rarely see a specific person's cards. But you can read the overall table pretty accurately in a round or two, and its overall looseness tends to be more constant than individual player responses.