Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Is there bluffing in Pokemon TCG?

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CCGer

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Is there any bluffing element in the Pokemon TCG? In theory, any game with hidden information should have some form of bluffing. But, that is only in theory. When I talk about bluffing, I don't mean trying to lie to your opponent or to cheat or to do poker face and all that. Bluffing is simply a kind of skill where you try to conceal your intentions while trying to know what your opponent intend to do. You don't necessarily need to watch for body language (although this will usually happen when you play someone face to face), as people can also bluff in online poker.

I choose to make this thread in this section and hope that it receives attention from people who are competitive in Pokemon TCG. I am not a good player, so I can't really judge it from myself. I would need some help here...

So, give me some examples of how bluffing happens in this game (perhaps an anecdote). How often do bluffing happen or matters in this game. Does it only exist in high level play?

By the way, please exclude examples of bluffing which includes the card Power Spray. Power Spray is an odd card because it is an interrupt which you play during your opponent's turn. Most of the time, there are no cards that causes interruptions during your opponent's turn in this game. This feature actually makes pokemon tcg different from other TCGs because it doesn't have "instants" cards (MTG), however, I am worried that due to the lack of cards like that, the Pokemon TCG will not have any bluffing strategies.

One more thing, please don't include examples where your opponent doesn't know the cards in your deck. I am trying to see if there is bluffing even if both players know their opponent's deck inside out or at least reasonably able to predict what cards will be in the decks. So, please do not include examples where an unusual tech is used or using a rogue deck in a tournament.

Thanks.
 
The difference in Pokemon is that you cannot verbally tell a mistruth- you can't just lie. So there is no true bluffing.

What you CAN do is try to lure a false assumption. Make your opponent make assumptions. This can be done all kinds of ways. I don't think it's very healthy for the game to talk about these sorts of things, though.
 
I think it's an educational thing, and I'll contribute two examples of not necessarily bluffing, but recognizing two actions that your opponent could take that might lead you to a false conclusion. But first, an excerpt from the Penalty Guidelines:

7.6.4. Cheating
Players who intentionally commit infractions are looking to gain an unfair advantage over other players at the event...

Examples of Unsporting Conduct: Cheating include:
  • Use of dubious game actions intended to deceive your opponent into making misplays.
Recommended Starting Penalty:
Tier 1: Disqualification
Tier 2: Disqualification
Click to expand...

So it's a very fine line between bluffing and cheating. Don't try to intentionally bluff. That said, here are the two things I encounter in the current format that may lead an opponent to form a conclusion (true or not) about what the opponent has in their hand:

  1. Opponent asks you how many cards in your hand? They may be trying to get you think they are holding an N in their hand. If they don't play it, maybe they're trying to get you to play an N on your next turn.
  2. Looking across the board at your bench, perhaps while holding a card in hand, indicating they are thinking about using a Pokémon Catcher. Usually they do play it right away, but it's just a pretty clear signal that they have one. So if they do this motion and don't play it, maybe they're trying to get you to shuffle away their hand with an N also, or rush you into a different strategy.
 
At one point some of the more creative players would run a single Oddish specifically so that their opponent would waste a Pokemon Catcher on it before it could "evolve", instead of getting rid of something that was actually important.
 
Yes, there's bluffing. But -- like many other card games -- one's ability to bluff tends to be inversely proportional to the skill (and attention span) of the opponent. Using body language to indicate you have a strong hand can be useful when trying to induce an opponent's N, but if they're watching the next game over or staring into space you're probably not going to actually influence their decision much.

It's similar in this respect to poker: representing a particular card with your betting pattern will likely go unnoticed by people who are just playing their own hand.
 
It's similar to Poker. In the sense that Bluffing and Poker faces mean very very little, and it's actually all about math/probability.
 
CMsvW said:
It's similar to Poker. In the sense that Bluffing and Poker faces mean very very little, and it's actually all about math/probability.
Click to expand...

As an amateur poker player who is up a significant amount of money in his life playing poker, I can tell you that bluffing is super important in poker. While there's math and probability underlying each decision, how you present the strength of your hand is tremendously important if you want to be successful at poker.

Pokemon? Not so much. Sometimes, presenting the strength of your hand can be important (such as making your opponent think that you have no supporter in your hand based on how you're playing, not through lying), but bluffing is definitely more important in poker.
 
Energy mostly. If you run a Ho - Oh EX as a Tech in a Terrakion Deck , use Grass Energy to bluff Shaymin and it adds one more energy to boost Ho - Oh EX's attack to stop the Shaymin EX sweep.
 
ryanvergel said:
The difference in Pokemon is that you cannot verbally tell a mistruth- you can't just lie. So there is no true bluffing.

What you CAN do is try to lure a false assumption. Make your opponent make assumptions. This can be done all kinds of ways. I don't think it's very healthy for the game to talk about these sorts of things, though.
Click to expand...

Ryan is exactly correct.

However, having been involved in discussions of this in the past, be VERY VERY careful about trying to do this.
Most, almost all, Pokemon players, can't do this correctly, and go over the line into lying or "dubious actions" which carry a game loss as a penalty.

Do it wrong and your tournament is over.
 
There isn't much bluffing in the traditional sense in Pokemon. As PokePop alluded, dubious actions are, of course, against the spirit of the game. All bluffing I've ever done is strictly non-verbal and 99-100% of the time relates to N.

I guess I'll just share this;
This is something I frequently did when playing Eelektrik when I had a dead hand - but my opponent didn't know yet. I'd simply search out an Eel even if I couldn't evolve my Tynamo that turn. If they had the N, they'd frequently play it because they'd want to get the Eel out of my hand. This would frequently work even when I had as few as 2 cards in my hand, they'd usually think the other one was a supporter. One opponent at a Battleroad quipped, "You have 3 cards in your hand, probably 2 Eels and a supporter... N." That, in my opinion, is a healthy and lie-free example of bluffing.

Another practical example I had to be wary of is Ultra Balling away a supporter. If you're opponent ever sees you discard a supporter with some sort of effect, they immediately assume you have another one. Which you should. Probably shouldn't be discarding one if you don't have any others. I was playing in a game where my opponent Ultra Balled away a Juniper and a Random Receiver, on my turn I N'd and he drew dead for the remainder. If he hadn't discarded those cards, I would not have played the N, just an example of how mentality and attentiveness can affect the game.
 
psychup2034 said:
As an amateur poker player who is up a significant amount of money in his life playing poker, I can tell you that bluffing is super important in poker. While there's math and probability underlying each decision, how you present the strength of your hand is tremendously important if you want to be successful at poker.
Click to expand...

Bluffing is a useful tool, but it certainly isn't the most important skill required to win in the long run. Most of the money is made has been from exploiting players ignorance rather than their greed or fears. Even at the higher stakes. Still, there is nothing better than triple range merging a tough thinking player.

SamSal said:
There isn't much bluffing in the traditional sense in Pokemon. As PokePop alluded, dubious actions are, of course, against the spirit of the game. All bluffing I've ever done is strictly non-verbal and 99-100% of the time relates to N.

I guess I'll just share this;
This is something I frequently did ...

Another practical example I had to be wary of is Ultra Balling away a supporter. If you're opponent ever sees you discard a supporter with some sort of effect, they immediately assume you have another one. Which you should. Probably shouldn't be discarding one if you don't have any others. I was playing in a game where my opponent Ultra Balled away a Juniper and a Random Receiver, on my turn I N'd and he drew dead for the remainder. If he hadn't discarded those cards, I would not have played the N, just an example of how mentality and attentiveness can affect the game.
Click to expand...

All that stuff comes under strategy and knowledge of the game, and how observent you or the player across from you is.
 
Another common example that all players have probably done at some point or another is making sure your opponent doesn't realize that an important card in your deck is prized. A bad player's body language will usually tip the opponent off instantly. That can be a big deal when your opponent knows that you're running short on a certain evolution late in the game.
 
You could run 1 or 2 deinos in a straight darkrai deck, in the old format people would throw in 1 or 2 oddishes to threaten a vileplume. Same thing with the deinos.
 
Here's one thing that I've seen a few people do to great sucsuess while using an Eel deck. Start with an Emolga then play a Level Ball and get an Eel. Attach an energy to Emolga and then Call for Family for 2 Tynamo. And nearly every time I've seen someone do that, their opponent used N (if they have it) on their next turn even though they had a better or more useful supporter in their hand too.

So did anyone see what happened there? The person with the Eel deck didn't play a supporter on their first turn and got an Eel instead. Why? Because they didn't have a supporter in their hand and just convinced the opponent to give them a new hand just because they searched their deck for something that the opponent thought then wanted at the time.

That's the best example of bluffing I can think of that isn't breaking any rules or going into dubious actions in the slightest.
 
It seems like many of you see bluffing as cheating. I have mentioned that bluffing do not necessarily means lying to your opponent or doing dubious to cause a misplay. Or perhaps I shouldn't use the word bluffing since it might cause some confusions. But let me explain this using examples of other games:

In Magic the Gathering, you have an important 3/3 creature in play. Your opponent has a 2/2 creature in play. Your opponent leave mana open and is able to cast an instant spell (lets call it Spell A)that says: give +2/+2 to one of your creature in play. Your opponent attacks with his 2/2 creature. Should you block?

In this example, you will need to make educated guess about the chances that your opponent have Spell A in his hand. Maybe, you will need to understand his mind set. Is he a player that often take risk? Is he conservative and usually play it safe? Or perhaps he is just bluffing? Or maybe he knows that you will think he is bluffing and so he has prepared for this ? All these happens without a single lie. Maybe there will be tells by his body language, but it works online (not face to face) as well.

Another example is from Yugioh:

You have a strong creature in play and your opponent's field is empty. Your opponent puts a face down card in his spell/trap zone. Should you attack?

This should be very common in Yugioh. Same like the MTG example, do you think he is bluffing?

Both the Yugioh and MTG examples involves "instant cards" which works by interrupting during your opponent's turn. Pokemon TCG has nothing like that (except Power Spray), and does it means that it wouldn't have interesting situations like those MTG and Yugioh examples I gave ?

The examples you guys gave which including the supporter card N is pretty standard. Are there other examples without N?

The idea of throwing out Oddish to make your opponent think that there is a Vileplume is not counted. Like I said, the examples should assume that both players know the contents of the decks they are using or playing against.

Thanks
 
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There are two things you have to make out when it comes to bluffing.

First, about that one:
"Use of dubious game actions intended to deceive your opponent into making misplays."
afaik it's about misrepresenting the game state or actions you're doing, like intentionally hiding tools, concealing lightning energy in your discard pile, discarding an N with Empoleon without announcing the ability, having a Dusknoir (DP) visible as reference card without actually having it in your deck etc. That's basically not allowed in any TCG.

What's (in my experience) allowed is to bluff about your future intentions or your options, but only if you don't lie to your opponent. This is usually made by game actions that could otherwise be left our or made in another order. Here two examples I personally did in the past which were legal and actually successfull.

- Playing Porygon-Z with my opponent having Dusknoir Lv.X as a stadium, I used Marley's Request and showed a Broken Time-Space and a Switch (which was the card I actually needed) to him. Obviously, he gave me the Switch, not knowing I have another BTS on my hand.

- With a Gardevoir deck against Luxchomp, I announced Teleportation without really wanting to switch out my active Gardevoir Lv.X. I got a Moonlight Stadium for free retreat which I was going to play anyway, and with the use of this power, I lured a Power Spray of my opponent.

There was a lot of possible bluffing with Power Spray around, on both sides. Still, there were things to be not allowed, like announcing impossible powers (Roast Reveal when you didn't have a fire energy in your hand).

At the moment, it's basically only about N.
 
Ask JWittz about bluffing. He had quite possibly the greatest bluff in the history of this game when he won StL Regionals a couple years ago.
 
What about stuff like rare candy? This card probably doesn't do much in the current format but perhaps in the older format it might be more important.

Will rare candy creates some surprises by, perhaps bringing out an attacker where your opponent doesn't expect it?

If you know that your opponent has a rare candy to bring out a huge attacker, perhaps you will play more defensively? If that is the case, bluffing your opponent by appearing to have a rare candy might make them play defensively, which buy you more time?

Another potential bluff is perhaps the card Pokemon Catcher. I believe that players will play differently if they know that you have a pokemon catcher in your hand. So, perhaps you can bluff with that?

I am just throwing in wild guesses.
 
CCGer said:
Will rare candy creates some surprises by, perhaps bringing out an attacker where your opponent doesn't expect it?
Click to expand...

Most players know what the final evolutions of popular cards do. For example, if I see a Squirtle on my opponent's bench, I'll immediately plan for Blastoise. Unfortunately, you're not going to bluff anyone with Rare Candy.
 
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