History Main / KansasCityShuffle

* In ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', Peggy and several other Arlenites get scammed by a con man and work together to craft a counter-con in order to make their money back. They set up a fairly transparent [[HustlingTheMark off-track betting scam,]] but the con man cashes out before he can suffer the inevitable "lose everything" step. Hank shows up and sees Peggy sobbing over her failure and goes to confront the con man in his hotel room, prompting him to stash his winnings in the hotel safe. After Hank leaves, the con man discovers the safe is now empty. He complains to the staff, who are just confused by his complaint, since this hotel doesn't ''provide'' safes. It turns out Peggy anticipated all of this, [[BatmanGambit including Hank's interference,]] and snuck the money out through a false back wall. Hank asks what she'd have done if things hadn't gone as planned. Peggy responds that [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill they also faked valet parking and would have taken his car.]]

** In ''Literature/SkinGame'', Mab charges Harry with repaying a debt to Nicodemus Archleone by helping him steal the Holy Grail from Hades' vault in the Underworld, along with a crew of other people Nicodemus hired for the job. After setting it up, Mab tells Harry that it's a setup: she only intends for Harry to help him get the Grail; she never said anything about what Harry would do after he got his hands on it. Both Harry and Nicodemus figure that the other is going to betray him as soon as Nicodemus obtains the Grail, so Harry asks for a second person to watch his back, while Nicodemus has secretly given Coins to Hannah Ascher and the Genoskwa (Lasciel and Ursiel, respectively, and hired Goodman Grey for the secondary reason of helping him kill Harry when it comes time. However, it is later revealed that Harry figured out that Grey was the only person Nicodemus could hire to get access to the location where the Way to Hades' vault could be opened, and secretly hired him first, with the purpose of turning on Nicodemus after he got the Grail. The resulting brouhaha leaves Nicodemus defeated and alone, with Deirdre dead by his hand (to get through the Gate of Blood), his power broken, and his reputation destroyed. Sure, he got the Grail, but he lost the item he really wanted: the knife that Christ was stabbed with while he was on the Cross, along with three other artifacts. It turns out the whole plot was a scheme by Mab and John Marcone, with Uriel and Hades' help, to get back at Nicodemus for the events of ''Small Favor''.

* In ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders]]'', Jotaro uses a set of magnets to trick DIO [[spoiler: into thinking he can move while DIO has stopped time]]. DIO laughs at having figured out the trick so easily... [[spoiler: except Jotaro wasn't trying to trick him into thinking he ''could'' move during stopped time, but rather was trying to trick DIO into thinking that Jotaro ''couldn't'' move in order to lure DIO closer to him, leaving him in perfect range to be attacked. By the time DIO figures this out, Jotaro has already put [[TorsoWithAView a fist through DIO's torso]]]]. DIO outright lampshades it.

** During Baylord Doom's invasion of the Cage, Doom's team agrees to hold a contest against Karaka and Bam. Karaka then suggests that, as part of the contest, Bam could fight one of the Rankers on Doom's side. This throws them off completely, because Bam is only a Regular, and only one Regular (that wasn't also an [[OutsideContextThreat Irregular]]) has ever beaten a Ranker in the history of the Tower. It's like Regulars are still levelling up, whereas Rankers have already reached maximum level and received a massive power boost at that last level. So Doom's team is sure that, whatever the heck Karaka is trying to make them do, it ''can't'' be to accept the bet for the Ranker to fight Bam, so logically they must accept it along with the obvious win it brings. That just makes them fall for what would otherwise have been the obvious trap, since Bam is an Irregular and at this point perfectly capable of defeating an ordinary Ranker.

* The [[BlackMarket deep web marketplace]] Silk Road was hit with an elaborate scam like this, as chronicled in [[https://youtu.be/GpMP6Nh3FvU this video by Barely Sociable]]. A user named [="FriendlyChemist"=] tried to blackmail the site's owner "[[Literature/ThePrincessBride Dread Pirate Roberts]]", threatening to release the personal information of thousands of customers and vendors publicly unless he was paid $500,000. According to him, his business partner had run off with the money and left him deeply in debt to the Hell's Angels, and this was his only way of paying them back. DPR asked to be put into contact with his supplier in the Angels to talk things over, but once he was, he ordered a hit placed on [=FriendlyChemist=] to silence him permanently. When the supplier came back to tell him the deed had been done, and furthermore, they'd learned [=FriendlyChemist=] was colluding with a group of other scammers, DPR ordered them to be taken care of too, paying the hitmen around a million dollars in total. The "supplier", however, turned out to just be [=FriendlyChemist=] under a different account, and none of the other scammers even existed, meaning in his attempts to get rid of him, DPR had given [=FriendlyChemist=] twice as much money as he was originally asking for.

* Soundbite from the ''Manga/OnePiece'' fanfic ''Fanfic/ThisBites'' ate the Noise-Noise Fruit, which lets him throw and manipulate his voice to superhuman levels. During a long battle against the Unluckies, Cross and Soundbite hide in one of the two bathrooms in a local bar. As Miss Friday is trying to guess where they're hiding Soundbite sneezes, audible in their hideaway. Miss Friday then opens fire on the ''other'' bathroom, giving Cross time to escape. As Soundbite guessed, the Unluckies learned by now to stop trusting their ears when fighting Soundbite. So when Soundbite mad the obvious sound in their hiding spot, Miss Thirteen assumed he was trying to misdirect her and would be in the room where there wasn't a noise.

* Soundbite from ''Fanfic/ThisBites'' at the Noise-Noise Fruit, that lets him throw and manipulate his voice to superhuman levels. During a long battle against the Unluckies, Cross and Soundbite hide in one of the two bathrooms in a local bar. As Miss Friday is trying to guess where they're hiding Soundbite sneezes, audible in their hideaway. Miss Friday then opens fire on the ''other'' bathroom, giving Cross time to escape. As Soundbite guessed, the Unluckies learned by now to stop trusting their ears when fighting Soundbite. So when Soundbite mad the obvious sound in their hiding spot, Miss Thirteen assumed he was trying to misdirect her and would be in the room where there wasn't a noise.

* There is a rule in ''BoardGame/{{Scrabble}}'' that you can "challenge" any word you suspect of being [[PerfectlyCromulentWord a made-up word]]. If the word is not in the dictionary you've agreed to use, it must be taken off the board and not scored. If, however, it ''is'' in the chosen dictionary, the ''challenger'' loses their turn or a point penalty. Normally you'd want to bluff your opponent into thinking a phony word is real, but some tournament players have been known to make their ''real'' words look ''phony''--if the opponent takes the bait, they get not only the score for the word, but an additional advantage.

* ''Film/RendezvousWithDeath'': The hero, Hsin, is assigned to undertake a potential SuicideMission to deliver a mysterious package from an Imperial Minister to the capital city, on the condition that he doesn't attempt to uncover the package's contents at any point of his journey. After travelling a long, dangerous and perilious route, surviving assasination attempts and bandit attacks from villains intending to seize the package for themselves, Hsi reaches the capital, only to find out the package to to bricks and paper - his role in the mission is a mere decoy, for his rival, Master Gu, who is allied with the Minister, to deliver the ''real'' package to the Capital city for a promotion. Needless to say, Hsin is ''furious'' at the revelation.

* ''Manga/{{Kaiji}}'' [[spoiler:defeats Ohtsuki in Underground Chinchirorin by engaging him in a psychological duel, where the crucial component is making Ohtsuki believe he has seen through Kaiji's ploy.]]
** The following arc contains a masterful example. [[spoiler: Shortly after Kaiji and Sakazaki blow most of their money trying to win the jackpot on a heavily rigged pachinko machine, Sakazaki comes back to try again, but quickly grows frustrated and starts smashing up the machine. Ichijou, the casino manager, assumes this must be a distraction and heads to his office to find Kaiji trying to break into the vault. He laughs at the futile attempt to trick him, subjects Kaiji to some light {{Fingore}} as punishment... and doesn't realise their true goal was to sabotage the machine during its repairs until it's already too late]].

* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', Magus attempts to convince [[ActuallyNotAVampire abberation]] Sirleck to help him in his plan to regain a body. Because of the danger, Sirleck is disinclined to help. Magus appears to try to tempt Sirleck into helping anyway by [[https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2010-08-13 offering him his services as a powerful wizard]], and in the end, making an appeal to Sirleck's conscience that reveals that once he returns, he will be utterly alone and friendless, and Sirleck will have him in his debt. Sirleck, who is looking for a new body to inhabit, notices that Magus would make a fantastic new host, and so agrees, planning to double-cross Magus once he has a corporeal body again. However, Magus is quite prepared for that [[https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2018-03-19 when it happens]], [[https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2018-03-23 pointing out that the fact he'd never asked Sirleck who he was planning to inahbit next "should have been a red flag"]]. Magus *appeared* to be dangling the debt as an incentive, but it was actually his expectation all along that Sirlek would actually take the bait of a body of someone who was friendless, undocumented, and obscenely powerful.

* Manga/{{Kaiji}} [[spoiler:defeats Ohtsuki in Underground Chinchirorin by engaging him in a psychological duel, where the crucial component is making Ohtsuki believe he has seen through Kaiji's ploy.]]

* In ''Manga/{{Kaiji}} 2'', Kaiji [[spoiler:defeats Ohtsuki in Underground Chinchirorin by engaging him in a psychological duel, where the crucial component is making Ohtsuki believe he has seen through Kaiji's ploy.]]

* In ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'', Negi pulls one off in his fight against Rakan. [[spoiler:He blitzes him with superspeed and while Rakan can't keep up with Negi hitting him from every angle at the speed of lightning, he can't get through Rakan's defenses. However, at this time he also sets up a spell circle around the two of them by using his attacks as a disguise since Rakan can't actually keep track of what he's doing anyway. After that he challenges Rakan to a show of strength and while Rakan assumes Negi will either throw a lightning spear at him or nullify Rakan's attack with Asuna's sword, he actually does nothing but activate the spell circle he'd set up beforehand so he could absorb the attack and increase his offenses enough to actually hurt Rakan.]]

* This is pretty much how any round of Manga/LiarGame works.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'';

* In the Franchise/{{Touhou}} print work, [[Manga/TouhouBougetsushou Silent Sinner in Blue]], Yukari pulls off a spectacular Kansas City Shuffle to stump Eirin and the Watatsukis. Specifically, [[spoiler: she manipulates Remilia into invading the moon with a highly visible rocket. Eirin warns the Watatsukis about this, while also warning them that Yukari herself was going to try to infiltrate the moon using that as a cover, believing that was Yukari's plan. Eirin ''is'' correct in figuring out Yukari's actions- but it turns out that ''Yukari herself was a decoy'' for the real thief, Yuyuko, to infiltrate the moon and steal a treasure.]]
* Frequently used in ''{{Manga/Naruto}}'':

** In "The Last Station", the main characters make Jahad's army think they were trying to create a distraction in order to sneak off in one of the Hell Train's cars, but the car that gets all the attention is actually one that only contains a bunch of minor villains who were on the train with them. Since the army commander doesn't know who exactly is to be arrested other than the Regulars on the train, it looks to her like she got "them".

** B.A later goes through a complex version when he repeatedly swaps burgers with his teammates like in the previous example. He does impressively well... only for him to fall asleep again along with Hannibal implying that he flopped at the last swap since he ''deducted'' that the last burger expected to be drugged was the one he had in the first place.

* In the American version of ''Series/TheOfficeUS'', Dwight plants an obvious bug in Jim's office in the form of a huge wooden duck (er, mallard). Jim quickly finds it and has some fun at Dwight's expense, eventually telling Dwight to stop trying these tricks. In the tag, however, we find out that Dwight actually planted a second, much less conspicuous bug (in the form of a pen) and that the duck (mallard) was just a decoy.

* In ''Literature/MemorySorrowAndThorn'', this forms the core element of the BigBad Storm King's EvilPlan, which is to trick the heroes into [[MacGuffinDeliveryService delivering the Three Swords]] to him that contain the power necessary to [[SealedEvilInACan summon him back into Osten Ard]], thinking that they are actually the key to defeating him. He and his allies liberally employ harassment, PropheticFallacy, and [[DreamingOfThingsToCome false dreams]] in service of this notion.

* [[Literature/GentlemanBastard Locke Lamora]] attempts this one when he cons a nobleman into giving him money for a business venture. Two members of the Duke's secret police contact Locke's mark to alert him that his new business partner is actually a con man. The mark won't investigate Locke or their joint business venture any more since he knows it's all a scam, but at the same time Locke keeps receiving money because the mark is told that the police is about to make an arrest and if the money stops Locke will flee with all the money he already has. Obviously there will be no arrest, because the "secret police" is actually Locke and his accomplice.

The Kansas City Shuffle is an old established name for a con game that depends on the mark believing (correctly) that the conman is trying to con him, but being ''in''correct about how it's going to be done. There's a reason it's called a "confidence trick", after all.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', Steve pulls an ''Ocean's Eleven''-style heist to rob a rich boy's Bar Mitzvah for revenge for stealing his girlfriend. This trope came into affect when he made the boy think he was going to steal his presents, but was actually after his Bar Mitzvah money.