What is a discard pile in Pokemon cards?

In the Pokemon Trading Card Game, the discard pile (or, simply, "discard") represents the collection of cards placed there from play (or directly in some special cases).

During gameplay, cards can be discarded for various reasons, such as:

- Playing certain trainer and Pokemon cards that require other cards to be discarded as a cost

- Discarding as a result of certain attacks, abilities or effects

- Voluntarily discarding cards from the hand to draw cards from the deck at the end of the turn

- Penalty of breaking certain gameplay rules, such as attempting to play too many basic energy on the same turn.