Hand Knowledge

Today, I wish to discuss with you an underrated aspect of Yu-Gi-Oh: hand knowledge. With the vast amount of search effects in the meta nowadays, it's important to know what your opponent has off of those searches. When you do this, you accomplish two things. The first is that you know what cards you opponent has in your hand. The second is that you can now formulate a plan with the cards that you currently have and play around what you know they have.
Another thing that I wish to discuss is remembering what your opponent gets when they search. If you know what they search, but you forget that information in the matter of two turns, it's not really helpful, isn't it? Enough said.
Let's use an example to explain this a bit better. Let's say your opponent is playing Hero Beat, you're playing Wind-Ups, and it's his first turn. He used E-Call to get Stratos, summoned Stratos, searched Neos Alius, set 3 backrow, and passed his turn. You have a hand of Solemn Warning, Wind-Up Rabbit, Wind-Up Factory, Tour Guide from the Underworld, Wind-Up Shark, and Bottomless Trap Hole. Granted that he searched Alius, he probably is holding a Gemini Spark to protect it for the next turn, so the Bottomless is useless at the moment. Tour Guide wouldn't be that effective as well, because he probably has an answer to your monster. There's no need to use Shark, because of the same reason you wouldn't summon Tour Guide. Thus, that leaves us with three cards to our disposal: Rabbit, Factory, and Warning for the Neos Alius. Your best bet would be to use Factory, summon Rabbit, set Warning, and pass. By doing that, you only lose to Solemn Warning, and who uses Warning on Wind-Up Rabbit? Your Warning would be used on their Aluis when they summoned it next turn, and since it's a Counter Trap AND it negates the summon, your opponent can't chain Spark to it. Therefore, you have a field that really doesn't lose to anything that your opponent can throw at you, thus being the most logical and safe play.
I hope that this has gotten you to remember what your opponent has searched out with their cards, and the above example has given you an example of how you can use that to your advantage. Until next time!

-The Saber Man