How to adapt mid match?

I can notice the things that i fall for, sometimes even the first time, but i have trouble acting on these observations. sometimes i’ll get after a day, or at least a break, but how can i do it mid game? how can i stop getting into patterns and such?

You don’t.
I mean you try to adapt, most likely fail because it’s a new situation for you, then you try again until you’re not getting nervous anymore and can react to the situation level-headed.
Don’t be so focused on winning. You will never win, you’re trash at the game. Fighting games aren’t fun if your goal is to win if you’re noob. A good player will never let you win. Shit you should focus on is punishing stuff that is unsafe correctly, anticipating jumps and anti-airing them, occupying space with normals and fireballs when they want to dash or move forward. Not everything at once, one by one.

So make yourself realistic and achievable goals and don’t forget to commend yourself every time you do it right. Build a bit of confidence.
Also play more player lobbies, especially long sets against the same player.
Why? Because one person mostly behaves the same in combat during the different stages of the fight they fall into different patterns depending on life lead/deficit.

So that makes it easier for you to analyze that person and find the weak points he has and the weak points you have that he exploits.
Bonus points if he’s slightly better than you. You always learn more, if you lose more if that makes sense.

Adapting mid match and throwing their gameplan out of the window to counter something is stuff I only see from people like GamerBee and other top players.
Sure I adapt or see small adaptations when playing my friends, but usually when it’s something that isn’t super easy to do and has to be practiced it fails.

It’s something you gradually gain over time. Sometime even when you’re not actively practicing the game.

That you are noticing it is a good first step though.

Don’t listen to anyone that’s says “you don’t”. Adapting midmatch is what I do all the time.

On different games. On sf5 it’s harder. But you should always be adapting to your opponent.

How do you adapt? That’s ridiculously broad and there are probably more things to adapt to than there are stars in the sky (ok not actually, but I digress)

You adapt to your opponent jumping a lot by anti airing better. Or you adapt to them not jumping a lot by concerning yourself more with the ground game.

You adapt to strategies they use by using strategies that beat their moves. You adapt to the spacing that they like by denying them that spacing. You adapt to there rhythm by playing at a faster or slower tempo than what they want to play at. You adapt to their adaptations by being one step ahead and figuring out what their adaptation will be before they even do it.

Etc etc.

[quote=“Dime_x, post:4, topic:182937”]

this is one i feel i understand, but rarely get to use it since i’m stuck in neutral so often and i still need to learn it. if i see that they like to wake up buttons i’ll go for a meaty grab. depending on how much of a habit i think wake up buttons is for them, i’ll do once, or more. then, when i feel they’ll try to tech, i’ll shimmy. but like i said, i don’t really get to do this often because i get confused, or get stuck in a habit myself.

the start of the round is good for this too i think. i played a fang one time, and i started the round with karin’s orochi since fangs like to start with one of their poison moves, and i hit him. the next round, i thought that since i already used that on him, he would try to attack instead, which would definitely hit orochi, so i used my st. hk instead to catch his attack, and he did it, and i got the hit. I think this stuff is really cool, and i have fun with it. but these are super simple situations, that’s all i can do rn i think

If they do wakeup buttons, the counter isn’t meaty grab, in general. It’s meaty buttons. Yes grabs do beat buttons on a same frame trade, but you need to consider this:

The opponent is invulnerable to being thrown for 2 frames after they get up. So if they get up with a 3 frame attack, you basically have to 1 frame time your meaty throw to beat them. If you are a frame early, your throw wiffs, if you are a frame late, they hit you. With buttons you don’t have this problem because they aren’t subject to wakeup invulnerability…
So now instead of a 1 frame timing window to throw them, you have a 3 frame timing window (or more if you use a high active frame move) to hit them.

Yes, if they like to tech then shimmy is the answer, but if they read your shimmy then they can just button you and take back their turn, so it’s important to try and be ambiguous about what you want to go for. Also… and this is hugely important, watch out for trying “obvious mixups” what’s an obvious mixup?

Ok let’s say you dash in and do cr.lp>throw. Let’s say the opponent techs this.

Now let’s say you think you have a read, so you immediately, or very soon, do another dash in cr.lp… into a shimmy this time. But they don’t bite…

Why don’t they bite?

It’s because the mixup was obvious. When you upped the tempo to immediately go in again with the same setup, it’s a clue to decent players that you will do something different this time as the mixup.

The same thing can be applied to jumping, or doing high low mixups or shimmy/frame trap mixups etc etc.

So what to do in this situation? Change the setup, and try to do it in a non obvious way. So let’s say they tech your tick throw after a dashin… now you wait a bit and jab AA them. Then they land, and that’s when you do the shimmy. They won’t be expecting it because they were more expecting a different obvious setup.

So when people say your mixups are obvious or whatever, it’s usually not that the mixup is obvious… it’s the setup that is obvious and using the same setup to go for a mixup usually gives the opponent information as to what you might do as the mixup compared to what you did last time.

But once again this is more for “soft” mixups. I.e. Mixups that can be beaten by reactions or spacings if the opponent is looking for them.

To further the example, if you try to abuse the shimmy off that AA jab setup I mentioned and your opponent starts to see this, then trying to use it as a mixup will lose its power since the opponent knows that a throw/shimmy will probably be coming and they more than likely will backdash or button on landing.