Tricky vs. Deceptive Behavior (updated 2/12)

[vegitalian]

This is the reason darthpika is a sith,

pokemon is for kids, poker is not
so do your bluffing with your pokerkiddies not your pokekiddies

This sounds like something Mr. T would say - followed by 'I pity the fool...'

I really think this is where the genious of Masters/Seniors/Juniors comes in. Masters is a chance for older players to take their game to another level. There are lines to be crossed (cheating, lying to your opponent, purposely trying to make them forget a step in their turn, distracting them); however, light bluffing can test the versatility of players and can ultimately improve skill and preparedness of the player being bluffed.

 

[chetabear]

well im a senior, so no light bluffing!

 

[SD PokeMom]

I really think this is where the genious of Masters/Seniors/Juniors comes in. Masters is a chance for older players to take their game to another level. There are lines to be crossed (cheating, lying to your opponent, purposely trying to make them forget a step in their turn, distracting them); however, light bluffing can test the versatility of players and can ultimately improve skill and preparedness of the player being bluffed.

i was unaware that SotG somehow doesn't apply to the masters division...

'mom

 

[louist200]

On the subject of things being prized. There was a time a few games days ago where I thought I had prized a Dusknoir dp. I said dang it. It was not prized the sleeves had just stuck together. The next turn after she had played 2 more basics I used Bebe's for a claydol. Finding that the dusknoir card had become unstuck. Played it down warped and shuffled her attacker back in. Was that deceptive and if not whats to stop people from saying that their cards were stuck.

 

[baby mario]

On the subject of things being prized. There was a time a few games days ago where I thought I had prized a Dusknoir dp. I said dang it. It was not prized the sleeves had just stuck together. The next turn after she had played 2 more basics I used Bebe's for a claydol. Finding that the dusknoir card had become unstuck. Played it down warped and shuffled her attacker back in. Was that deceptive

No, that's an honest mistake.

and if not whats to stop people from saying that their cards were stuck.

I dunno . . . honesty? sportsmanship? SotG?

 

[Everwind]

I define tricky is some action or actions you take such that that your opponent does not know what is happening until too late (provided they were not deceived) or intentionly mislead to believe something false is true or vice versa. However, everything I have read indicates that the purpose of the Pokemon game and the rules is to be kid friendly and not so cut throat as to intimidate, deceiving, or purposely mislead someone. These are all sound strategies in many games, butI believe that level of play is not intended for this game.

As such folks should stop whining about it. Dem's the rules and folks should play within them or play something else IMHO.

 

[Ignatious]

If its not allowed then I'm fine. I just really don't get why its ok to play other little mind games, and this is being compared to cheating.

I agree with this 100%. Everything DP has said, I do not agree with, but this, is right on the dot. It's hypocritical to criticize DP for playing a mind game, and then go around into saying how other mind games are okay. Regardless of how you preform a mind game, it is still a mind game. Picking and choosing which are acceptable and which are cheating is ridiculous, no, it's beyond ridiculous. If a player holds a card and claims it to be a Power Spray, that is no different than that player having his hand flat on the table, claiming he has a Power Spray; both equally effect the opponent's move. Both are deceptive. This also applies to pretending that your precious tech card is prized. This is clearly a discreet lie, based on fooling your opponent into losing the game based off of the said lie, rather than losing based off of skill or any legal 'tricky play'.

 

[DarthPika]

I agree with this 100%. Everything DP has said, I do not agree with, but this, is right on the dot. It's hypocritical to criticize DP for playing a mind game, and then go around into saying how other mind games are okay. Regardless of how you preform a mind game, it is still a mind game. Picking and choosing which are acceptable and which are cheating is ridiculous, no, it's beyond ridiculous. If a player holds a card and claims it to be a Power Spray, that is no different than that player having his hand flat on the table, claiming he has a Power Spray; both equally effect the opponent's move. Both are deceptive. This also applies to pretending that your precious tech card is prized. This is clearly a discreet lie, based on fooling your opponent into losing the game based off of the said lie, rather than losing based off of skill or any legal 'tricky play'.

Thank you for posting that. For a second I thought the world was going crazy. lol

I get bashed for suggesting bluffing with powerspray, yet in tourney reports you hear how X well known player makes some great move with a mind game, and everyone acts like it was the most amazing thing ever. :/

 

[Rogue Archetype]

THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN THIS DISCUSSION!

afstandopleren
baby mario
Ardoptres
secretsof2113
JokerBoi
vegitalian
yoyofsho16
Sunscorch
Godzfirefly
rage780
Master_Whiscash_77
the_sniper - "I angle shot Andrew Cox at Nats. last year- cost me a game loss" == What's an "angle shot"?
Happiny13
chetabear
louist200
Everwind
Ignatious
DarthPika = You are NOT the ONLY guy to think about bluffing in this manner; just the only one brave enough to suggest it. I was hoping someone would come in here and offer up the "Power Spray Bluff Scenario" to be debated. Thank you for taking one for the team there. By the way, it's ok in Poker. Not Pokemon

SUPER PROPS to our esteemed JUDGES and Pokemon Officials who offered up some words of wisdom

Lawman
PokePop
SD PokéMom
M_Liesik

 

[vegitalian]

THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN THIS DISCUSSION!

afstandopleren
baby mario
Ardoptres
secretsof2113
JokerBoi
vegitalian
yoyofsho16
Sunscorch
Godzfirefly
rage780
Master_Whiscash_77
the_sniper - "I angle shot Andrew Cox at Nats. last year- cost me a game loss" == What's an "angle shot"?
Happiny13
chetabear
louist200
Everwind
Ignatious
DarthPika = You are NOT the ONLY guy to think about bluffing in this manner; just the only one brave enough to suggest it. I was hoping someone would come in here and offer up the "Power Spray Bluff Scenario" to be debated. Thank you for taking one for the team there. By the way, it's ok in Poker. Not Pokemon

SUPER PROPS to our esteemed JUDGES and Pokemon Officials who offered up some words of wisdom

Lawman
PokePop
SD PokéMom
M_Liesik

I appreciate you bringing this topic up - I haven't done the competitive circuit since Rings (which generally was an older group), and bluffing was a large part of determining top players. It's good to know that it doesn't comply to the Pokemon SotG now as opposed to finding out in the middle of a tournament

 

[SD PokeMom]

I get bashed for suggesting bluffing with powerspray, yet in tourney reports you hear how X well known player makes some great move with a mind game, and everyone acts like it was the most amazing thing ever. :/

links to some examples of this please?

'mom

 

[Lucario EX]

My wife was SO down on herself for not catching that right away.
The MESSED UP thing about deceptive players is when you catch them, the action is hard to rewind and YOU end up with some kind of a penalty for telling the judge! (i.e. "you get a caution and you get a warning" or.. "you get a warning and you get a prize card").

Rogue, please keep in mind that all of these penalties are simply for tracking, and are not intended to be any kind of punishment for telling a judge about the problem. You want another example of deceptive play? How's this?

Player A, using Torterrible, has two Turtwigs and a Treecko benched. He accidentally plays a Grovyle onto a Turtwig, obviously meaning to evolve Treecko into Grovyle, but simply places the card onto Turtwig instead.
Player B sees the mistake, but pretends not to, and waits for the situation to become unwindable.

Several turns later, near the end of the game, Player B "notices" the Sceptile that Player A has is evolved from a Turtwig and calls for a judge, causing Player A to receive a GL.

Now, if Player B doesn't get a penalty, he can just do this again later, either much farther into that tournament, or at a different tournament. If he gets a Warning, it would be reported to POP, and if he did this, say, once every tournament, there would be a noticable pattern, which POP would be alerted to.

If Player B honestly hadn't noticed the mistake, it would almost certainly not happen enough to cause any kind of problem for them.

So, yeah, sorry to rant, but had to clear up any possible misunderstandings.

 

[Lawman]

I agree with this 100%. Everything DP has said, I do not agree with, but this, is right on the dot. It's hypocritical to criticize DP for playing a mind game, and then go around into saying how other mind games are okay. Regardless of how you preform a mind game, it is still a mind game. Picking and choosing which are acceptable and which are cheating is ridiculous, no, it's beyond ridiculous. If a player holds a card and claims it to be a Power Spray, that is no different than that player having his hand flat on the table, claiming he has a Power Spray; both equally effect the opponent's move. Both are deceptive. This also applies to pretending that your precious tech card is prized. This is clearly a discreet lie, based on fooling your opponent into losing the game based off of the said lie, rather than losing based off of skill or any legal 'tricky play'.

To me, it is no different. You should not pull single cards out on your oppo's turn to influence their play. If you have the spray and enough G pokes in play to use it, JUST BE READY. No need to play games with this card.

Keith

 

[Rogue Archetype]

I've UPDATED the original post !

Thanks to all who have come in to discuss.

Please keep suggesting fixes so the post will be INFORMATIVE to people who wander across it.
(you may be surprised of the number of PokeParents / PokeGrandparents that are looking for discussions like this one to gain insight into the game)

Thanks to all once again.

 

[Vegeta ss4]

I agree with Darth Pika about the hypocritycal things. I do not like the bluffing...it's terrible for this game. But, some cards do create mind games. It is QUITE silly to point out Power Spray bluff is terrible but other cards decieve.

 

[Martin]

I'm sorry but anyone who is foolish enough to be affected in any way by those described methods deserves it. None of that really works against a player who knows better.

 

[ShadowGuard]

I think an important difference is on what you bluff for. It's deceptive play to make the opponent think wrong about the game state. This includes actions like intentinally hiding cards like Unown G under your Pokémon, make him believe you can power spray if it wouldn't be possible cause you have only two G Pokémon or used all 4 Sprays, seperate water energy from your discard pile except for one or two in a Kingdra deck etc. This behaviour should be penalized if seen by a judge.

But it's ok to make the opponent think wrong about your intentions later in your turn - without telling lies, of course. For example, when I play against a Galactic deck and really need my Cosmic Power, I keep my hand as big as possible, use all other powers in my deck (like Fire Breath or Speed Gain in Blaziken) in hope my opponent uses his power spray. Then I play Bebe's Search and other cards I have to lower my hand and use Cosmic Power. I act the same way if I absolutely don't need Cosmic Power, so my opponent couldn't figure out when to spray even if he knows about my kind of play. However, in other matchups I would use Powers like Fire Breath at the end of the turn. The same thing is if you have a power that gives an important advantage (Psychic Bind, Flash Bite) - you would get your hand low and pretend you need that Cosmic Power or that Setup before to kick out any Power Sprays before you go on. So you just change the order of your game actions. btw this is one of the reasons why I've won more than half of my tournament games vs Galactic decks.

 

[yoyofsho16]

I honestly don't like the sighs, eye rolls, expressions of poor hands or displaying of cards to their neigbor/friend (at set up) for god or horrible hands. Esp. in the MA division. You all should know better. Just play the game.

This always gets me all annoyed when at a tournament. The player next to you HAS t oshow you their awful hand or great hand, and it certainly gets the opposite player all afraid. Let's say the opponent KNOWS that their opponent who showed me their hand was playing Machamp. They might decide to put down an Uxie to avoid being donked, wasting that Uxie drop.

I must admit though, sometimes I will say things like "darn" to myself by instinct when I search my deck for a card that's prized, etc... Would this be deceptive? I don't really mean to say it, it just sort of comes out as a result of years of learning how to react to misfortune by instinct, and it is meant to be a sort of talk to myself. Would this be considered bad?

 

[Rogue Archetype]

I think an important difference is on what you bluff for. It's deceptive play to make the opponent think wrong about the game state. This includes actions like intentinally hiding cards like Unown G under your Pokémon, make him believe you can power spray if it wouldn't be possible cause you have only two G Pokémon or used all 4 Sprays, seperate water energy from your discard pile except for one or two in a Kingdra deck etc. This behaviour should be penalized if seen by a judge.

But it's ok to make the opponent think wrong about your intentions later in your turn - without telling lies, of course. For example, when I play against a Galactic deck and really need my Cosmic Power, I keep my hand as big as possible, use all other powers in my deck (like Fire Breath or Speed Gain in Blaziken) in hope my opponent uses his power spray. Then I play Bebe's Search and other cards I have to lower my hand and use Cosmic Power. I act the same way if I absolutely don't need Cosmic Power, so my opponent couldn't figure out when to spray even if he knows about my kind of play. However, in other matchups I would use Powers like Fire Breath at the end of the turn. The same thing is if you have a power that gives an important advantage (Psychic Bind, Flash Bite) - you would get your hand low and pretend you need that Cosmic Power or that Setup before to kick out any Power Sprays before you go on. So you just change the order of your game actions. btw this is one of the reasons why I've won more than half of my tournament games vs Galactic decks.

Oh.. I like this. I'm gonna update original post w/ some of this. Thanks for dropping in! :thumb:

 

[BloodDraek]

One of my personal favorite ways to trick opponents is playing little mind games during the battle. Nothing that's cheating, but stuff that will make them think twice before doing a move.

For example, lets say I'm using a G deck, and my opponent is using kingdra.

I have 3 G pokemon in play and its my opponents 2nd turn. They have no claydol in play and are still setting up. My opponent playes a roseanne, and searches the deck. While they do this I hold up a card (so they can't see what it is) as if I'm getting ready to power spray the Uxie that they want to take. Seeing this, they take a Baltoy instead, buying me extra time. I don't even NEED a power spray in my hand to hold of Uxie drops. Just reminding your opponent that you MIGHT have one can be very powerfull, and quite tricky.

After the game you can tell them, "ya, remember that power spray I was holding up in the beginning of the game? Well, it really was just a water energy." lol

now ya see DarthPika this plan might work for some games if the judge doesn't see you, but then your opponent uses looker's investigation and you get a game loss