Apedia

Call Bluff Hand Cards Bet Bragging Beat Badly

Idiom Call Your Bluff
Example They're bragging they can beat us badly. C'mon. Let's call their bluff.
Meaning to demand that someone prove a claim; to challenge someone to carry out a threat
Origin This early 19th-century American saying comes from card playing. In poker, a player makes bets according to what his hand is, compared to what he thinks others' are. When you bluff, you pretend you have a great hand of cards even when you don't, and you raise the bet to fake out the other players. If someone "calls your bluff," he or she challenges you by meeting or raising your bet ("to call" means to match a bet) to make you show the cards you really have.

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