Belcher's Bluff - what am I missing? Is it just random, or are there tells?

I've tried it a few times, but I fail to see the fun in it - all I can do I randomly select skills and hope they're the right ones.Should I see what my opponent is intending to do?

Each of the Home Instance belchers has a strategy you can read up on by going to their page from here https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Belcher%27s_Bluff

If you have not yet unlocked all of the skills, you will want to start with the easy opponents from the Walkthrough section.

Also, it appears that the progression is currently bugged so you are not actually able to unlock the signature moves, which will prevent you from advancing through the different masters.

yeah i noticed recently i had all my special moves removed despite doing the entire achiev tab and unlocking everything when it came out.