I've noticed that there is a lot of deck advice available, but not much 
advice on strategy in play.  Most times, it is not your deck that wins, but 
the strategy you use playing it.  For example, I was able to take fourth 
place in a local tournament with only a very slightly modified "Blackout" 
deck because of my strategy in play.

Here are some tips that could be very valuable in your next tournament, no 
matter what cards you have:

*disclaimer: all good strategies have exceptions.  Take "never" or "always" 
as meaning "except in special circumstances, never/always..."

1.  Never evolve a pokemon before putting energy on it.  If you evolve a 
bulbasaur into an ivysaur and then a venusaur on the bench before putting any 
energy on it, you'll have a useless pokemon for several turns once your 
active pokemon is gust of winded/retreated/knocked out.  Instead, put energy 
on your benched evolving pokemon, and play evolutions when you can use the 
evolutions attack.  For example, with the Machop line:

Play Machop to the bench (try to evolve on the bench, where your pokemon are 
generally safe).  Play an energy on him.  Next turn, play another energy on 
him.  Next turn, play an energy on him, and evolve him into machoke.  Next 
turn, play another energy on him and evolve him into Machamp.  Then bring him 
up to kill your opponent's pokemon.  That way, you don't have a Machamp as 
the active pokemon for 4 turns, taking damage while not being able to deal 
any.

2.  When choosing your first active pokemon at the beginning of the game...
keep the following things in mind.
- speed is of the utmost importance.  An ideal 1st pokemon has an attack for 
one energy.  Staryu, Machop, and Weedle are all good 1st turn pokemon in 
terms of speed.  Less good starting pokemon include Growlithe (1 fire, 1 
fighting), Vulpix (2 fire) and Bulbasaur (2 grass).
-High HP.  This one goes without saying.  50HP is, as has been said before, a 
"magic number" in pokemon.  It lets your pokemon take 2 20-point attacks 
without dying.
-No evolution.  If you choose a pokemon that can't evolve as your starting 
pokemon, you get 2 benefits: 1st, pokemon that can't evolve are generally( 
not always) better than those that can.  Look at Hitmonchan, Electabuzz, and 
Jynx.  They make good starting pokemon because they can attack with 1 energy, 
and have 70 HP apeice.  2nd, if you waste one of your charmanders as a 
starting pokemon, you may never get a chance to bring out Charizard.  It's 
better (as I have said) to build up an evolving pokemon on the bench, while a 
high HP pokemon (or a string of low HP pokemon) acts as a wall.

3.  Learn when to run.  If your pokemon is just about to die, and you have 
some decent benched pokemon, retreat him.  Or use switch, or scoop up.  Any 
of those makes your pokemon unpoisoned, unparalyzed, unconfused, and unasleep 
(...err... awake.)  By learning when to run, you can keep your opponent from 
getting a prize... and when he uses Gust of Wind, you'll get an extra attack 
on his possibly deadly lead pokemon.

Example: you have a weedle with 3 damage counters on your bench, and 
Charmeleon up.  It's your turn.  You use slash on your opponent's active 
pokemon, Dragonair, who is down to 50 HP because of your slash.  Your 
opponent then uses Gust of Wind to bring up Weedle, and then uses hyper beam 
(20pt attack) to kill weedle.  You bring back Charmeleon... and use 
Flamethrower (50 pt attack) to kill off Dragonair.  You've just killed the 
pokemon your opponent has been building up for several turns, while your 
opponent has killed off.... weedle.  Both of you got prizes, but you've got a 
Charmeleon up, and your opponent most likely has only basics.

I didn't cover many aspects of play strategy here, but I covered three of the 
basic ones that were keeping my opponents from winning the tournament 2 weeks 
ago.  Most of you probably know of these tactics, but if you haven't been 
using them, I reccomend that you try them out.  They've worked pretty well 
for me.

Meaghan Horner
RandomDent@aol.com