The first tip to note in the Wild West Duels is always to look at the other players Details. What you are looking for here is to see exactly where their progress has gone so you can compare yourself. The things you need to look for are how many Duels that character has won and how many they have lost, what their inventory is looking like, and what badges they have. Look to see if they have less and / or weaker weapons that you, and see if they have fewer gang members than you. These are both signs that you are more prepared for this fight than they will be.
With badges, you are going to have a different process all together. Badges can be a sign of where their priorities were in Wild West. For example, if they have a higher quest badge than you it may show that they are moving up too quickly and have not squatted on levels at all. This can indicate that they may not have prepared their account as much as you because they moved through levels too quickly.
The contrary may be true if they are very high on their Wild West Duels badges or Bounty Kills badges. You cannot see where they have spent their experience points, but their statistics on their Wild West profile page should be fairly telling.
On your side, you need to make sure that you do not level up until you are receiving large returns from real estate, are over equipped on gang members and weapons, and are superior to most all characters that you are fighting.
