Life In 19x19

As a beginner, something that bothers me is not knowing how to properly counter mirror go. It seems like such an easy strategy to use, if someone were so inclined. I've read through the pages on Sensei's, and I know about some of the tricks to countering it. But those require your opponent to blindly mirror you the entire time. What if once you try setting up a trap for the mirror, your opponent deviates, and you're suddenly left in a bad spot?

I'd like to know the PROPER way to defend mirror go or partial mirror go, from black (with black playing tengen first), and from white.

It would really put my mind at ease to see some examples of how to exploit this strategy.

Mirror go starting with tengen as black suffers from the weakness that it fails against komi. If the score on the board is equal, white's komi is sufficient to win. If you play without komi, or with reverse komi, then the strategy against it is the same as that against white playing mirror go.

Mirror go with white is not in itself a bad strategy, and is used up to the very highest level of play. The proper way to use it is, as you describe, to play it until you feel your opponent has made a bad move and then deviate. The proper way to play against it, therefore, is to set up a counter strategy without making bad moves. That is not easy. Some high level examples can be found in articles 74 and 75 of GoGoD's New In Go.