Why does fake out sometimes not make me flinch?

Question

So, I've been going through the elite four a couple bajillion times to train my competetive team except I've noticed something.

As most of you know, most of the hoenn elite four members have a Pokemon that knows fake out. And they use it on me all the time, but 9 out of ten fake outs don't make me flinch, and I want to know why?

Bulbapedia says it's a 100% chance, does it have to do with switching? Why?

Answer 1

Some of your Pokemon might have these abilities:

• Inner Focus, which grants an immunity to flinching
• Shield Dust, which negates any additional affects of moves (so in this case, it would negate the additional affect of flinching)

More possible explanations:

• They might not be using Fake Out on the first turn that their Pokemon goes out- if this is the case, it will fail and not cause your Pokemon to flinch
• Pokemon behind Substitute cannot be flinched unless a Pokemon with the ability Infiltrator uses a flinch-inducing move (thank you UKQ)

Another suggestion from UKQ... if you switch into the move Fake Out it will not flinch your Pokemon because they do not have a move pending.

Source

Comments

Hmmm... my crobat does have inner focus, but it's the only one... and I doubt that it's only been crobat having take out used on it....

---

that's all that i could find between bulbapedia, DB, serebii and veekun about fake out... can you go test it again and see if your crobat is the only one who isnt flinching?

---

im actually really curious about this so if you could tell me what happened that would be nice...

---

Well make sure you just didn't switch a Pokemon on in when they used Fake Out.

Also, it is possible to flinch a Pokemon behind a sub using infiltrator fake out meowstic: http://pokemondb.net/pokebase/113638/is-it-possible-for-a-pokemon-with-fake-out-to-do-this?

Nit-picky things.

---

Thank you :)