History Main / KansasCityShuffle

All con-games rely on misdirection to some degree. In most, the con artist wants the victim to believe that it's not a con at all. But in a Kansas City Shuffle, the con artist needs the victim to do three things:

A related (but distinct) con is the ViolinScam, where the grifter tricks the mark into trying to con ''them''. A mark who is TooCleverByHalf is likely to take the bait and be conned, while another who is TooDumbToFool may unwittingly evade the trap by not noticing the "bait" con.

## To suspect that they are involved in a con-game.
## To think that they've figured out how to beat the con.
## To be wrong about what the real con is.

** In Season 1, ''3rd Life SMP'', after Grian sets up a water elevator in Bdubs's castle on Day 5, Bdubs catches Grian with pufferfish and Grian admits that he'd tried to rig the elevator with it. Bdubs is happy that he caught Grian before the trap could be complete... and proceeds to burn to death when he goes up the elevator, realizing too late that Grian ''had'' rigged his trap -- and that said trap was ''[[AMoltenDateWithDeath lava]]''.
** In Season 5, ''Secret Life SMP'':

* TabletopGame/{{Poker}} lends itself naturally to these. One example is for a player who is holding a strong hand to pull players into the pot. Since (smart) players should pull out from a pot if they know their opponent is strong, a player holding "the nuts" (an unbeatable hand) has to look like he isn't. A player who's bluffing is trying to scare everyone out of the pot and is lying. A player with a strong hand or the nuts could try to look like he's pulling one con (bluffing) while really hoping people "call his bluff." If that player has read books of tells, for example, he could purposefully try to act like a player with "normal" tells to look like he's bluffing. It works best against the half-smart. Really good players may have it figured out, and poker players know "bluffing a monkey," or pretending to bluff a monkey, is a waste of time.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': Creator/KurtBusiek's ''ComicBook/ActionComics'' run presents this as the preferred M.O. of the Prankster. During a fight with Superman, he menaces a rival criminal using a bomb with a cartoonish fizzing wick. Superman grabs away the wick before it touches the bomb... which starts the ''real'' bomb activation mechanism, a chemical reaction.

* ''Film/MissionImpossibleRogueNation'': Ethan Hunt requires the British Prime Minister's fingerprint, retinal scan, and voice pattern to decrypt a virtual redbox. Brandt sells him out to Hunley, who informs [=MI6=] chairman Attley, who ushers the Prime Minister to safety, because Hunt going after the Prime Minister would cause an international incident. Once safely in a room, Brandt manages to manipulate the Prime Minister and Attley into revealing the existence of [[NebulousEvilOrganization the Syndicate]]. With this knowledge in hand, Hunley and Brandt, knowing Hunt's previous track record of anticipating his opponent's every move (conversation included), decide the best course of action is to stay put. Turns out, ''that'' was the action Ethan planned for, and that Brandt was in on it all along.

* 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 Sirleck would actually take the bait of a body of someone who was friendless, undocumented, and obscenely powerful.

** The place with a lot of doors mentioned in the previous entry--Kraagor's Tomb--is itself an example. Serini's Gate is supposedly behind one of the doors, but every door present contains a large number of high-level monsters, making this particular shell game not only difficult to solve, but deadly. [[spoiler:As it turns out, all the doors contain a dimensional portal leading to the monster dungeons--which is quickly spotted and (temporarily) disabled by Haley. What's really behind the doors is a large cavern with many exits, which contains a hidden path leading to Serini's hidden home. And that's not even the end of it; the Gate isn't even in the area with the large cavern--it's somewhere else entirely. After all, if a half-decent rogue can spot the switchovers and bypass them, it's not a particularly good hiding spot--as Roy and Haley had already both realized themselves.]] ultimately, Kraagor's Tomb turns out to ''not'' be an example: [[spoiler:the real trick isn't to find the "right" door, but to clear the entire thing. Only once every single dungeons has been emptied in a certain time, the Gate is revealed]].

The TropeNamer is the song "The Kansas City Shuffle", which is explained in detail in the movie ''Film/LuckyNumberSlevin''. In UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates, UsefulNotes/KansasCity is one of the largest cities in the State of...Missouri. There ''is'' a Kansas City, Kansas literally right across the state line, but it's much smaller, more like a suburb of the Missouri city, and usually not what people are talking about when they mention the Kansas City metropolitan area. Thus, it's a near-perfect physical metaphor: "when they look on one side of the river, you're on the other".

* The Joker's plot in ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOBatmanMovie'' revolves around him being sent to the Phantom Zone, an extradimensional prison where [[SealedEvilInACan the most evil villains are kept.]] To do this, he willingly surrenders himself to the Gotham City Police in order to be thrown into Arkham Asylum. Batman assumes that his easy capture must mean that Joker is plotting something bigger, and sends him to the Phantom Zone, which Joker promptly escapes from, along with the rest of its occupants.

[[folder:Poetry]]
* The description of this very trope used to incorporate a poem about it from the point-of-view of a certain DiscreditedMeme.
-->''My name is Candle Jack, I don't write in black, it's part of my Kansas City Shuffle\\
They call my name, but with rope and a duffel sack, they're calling for trouble\\
See, you fear shadows, but I'm too bright\\
I hit submit after you type\\
So one quickstep is all it takes to fall into a Kansas City Shuffle''
[[/folder]]

*** The essence of Lizzie's Day 2 task is to convince other players she's doing a certain secret task and accuse her of it, when her actual secret task is to do that [[RuleOfThree three times]]. Unfortunately for her, while everyone she encounters notices that she's acting weird, ''the entire server'' is acting weird and [[UnusuallyUninterstingSight don't think too much of it anymore]], and without anyone directly accusing her of doing a secret task, she fails the task in the end.

* ''[[WebVideo/LifeSMP 3rd Life SMP]]'': After Grian sets up a water elevator in Bdubs's castle on Day 5, Bdubs catches Grian with pufferfish and Grian admits that he'd tried to rig the elevator with it. Bdubs is happy that he caught Grian before the trap could be complete... and proceeds to burn to death when he goes up the elevator, realizing too late that Grian ''had'' rigged his trap — and that said trap was ''[[AMoltenDateWithDeath lava]]''.