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.
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