for the most part, you need to know the players your playing against really well ... in my home game i can detect the set quite often because a few of my friends play their sets quite strongly on the flop... most of the time they are intimidated by me, so they usually just check and fold when i'm aggressive in a pot, but when they come over the top of me, i've been noticing they have sets the majority of the time and/or straight




but its not impossible to detect straights on a stranger, i think getting to that level is going to take some time.. im sure alot of the pro's like danny negs and so fourth can sniff one out the majority of the time.