Here are some basic card strategies to keep in mind when you are playing
Pokemon:

1. At the beginning of the game you should pick a starting pokemon with a
low retreat cost and a low cost for its attacks. Machop is probably the
perfect starting pokemon. Its retreat cost is 1, its attack cost is one,
and it has 50hp.

2. Keep at least one pokemon on the bench at a time, but no more than two
if they don't have energies on them. The strategy here is to first build up
your active pokemon then build up your benched. Once you have a benched
pokemon built up you should put out another benched pokemon and start
building it up.

3. When evolving be sure to have at least the required amount of energies
on the basic pokemon to use the evolved form's attacks. There is an
acception to this, however, and that is this: If your nidoran is about to
be knocked out and this will be your opponent's last prize you may evolve.
However, if possible try to just retreat. 

4. Watch your opponent's facial expression. If he is smiling then do
something crazy like an imposter oak or a lass or a gust of wind. 

5. Keep your own facial expression little to none. when you get a good card
don't jump up and down and say, "yahoo!" or something like that. You can
even confuse your opponent by smiling when you get bad cards and frowning
when you get good cards.

6. Use trainer cards as neccesary. If you see your opponent building up a
zapdos on the bench please do yourself a favor and use super energy
removal.  

that's all for now but thanks for listening! Joey Eno
(Angeleno@compuserve.com)