Training your kids how to lie convincingly to you -- what could go wrong?

The article ends

> As a parent, I’m pleased that I’ve given her the tools to put herself through college hustling poker games, and then go work at a proprietary trading firm.

which is presumably written with the same sardonic intent as any other Matt Levine work.

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jefftk 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

When my kids were maybe 6 and 4 we started playing One Night Ultimate Werewolf as a family. It very quickly became clear this was a bad choice: the oldest went from being terrible at lying (and so ~never doing it) to actually being pretty good, surprisingly quickly. As soon as we noticed this we stopped, and while she didn't go back to how she had been there was definitely much less lying and she didn't remain good at it.

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DrewRWx 5 days ago | parent [-]

Do you think she adopted her pokerface she learned it against you or was there another reason?

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jefftk 5 days ago | parent [-]

I think it's simpler than that: people get better at things with practice.

Werewolf isn't like poker where people typically try to conceal their emotions and leak nothing; instead you're trying to act like you're on the Villager team regardless of whether you actually are.

	▲	behringer 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Remember, being a good liar means you can sniff out a lie too. It's not a terrible skill to teach if it can be wielded for good. Maybe a mafia style game would be more suitable where both sides are played.

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bko 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think it's balanced by having him or her learn skepticism, game theory, information asymmetry, and adverse selection, among other useful skills.

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TZubiri 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a common misconception that poker is about lying or that you need to lie to play poker.

You can bet with a bad hand, but you don't need to say you have a good hand, if asked you can say you either have a bad hand or a good hand, without any impact to your strategy.

Lying holds no advantage in poker, you can easily play poker without lying, no correlation is intrinsic to the game or its rules, it's just a common association people make

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djeastm 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

If we replace the word "lying" with "deception" does that change anything?

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wrs 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Poker players very seldom outright lie, like saying out loud "hey everybody, my hand is great!", and it's usually not just simple "deception" either.

How about "behaving in a way that increases the probability of your particular adversaries making incorrect inferences about your situation"?

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bawolff 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> How about "behaving in a way that increases the probability of your particular adversaries making incorrect inferences about your situation"?

I'd call that lying with extra steps.

(Which to be clear, im fine with in the context of a game (and in certain contexts even in real life). Plenty of sports can be traced back to ritualized ways of practising to murder people. Take all the field sports of track and field)

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wrs 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I would say that to "lie" means to present information as truth when it is in fact false, and you know it's false. By this definition, you can't "lie" with behavior, only with speech.

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Talanes 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Your definition seems like it would include the entire field of cryptography as lies, would it not?

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bawolff 5 days ago | parent [-]

I don't think cryptography usually results in an increased probability of your adversary making incorrect inferences relative to the base case of the adversary having no information. So no, i wouldn't say so.

Maybe you can argue steganography is lying.

Regardless, i also find the idea that lying is morally wrong reductive. Morality depends on context. There are plenty of cases where being misleading is morally ok in my opinion.

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Talanes 5 days ago | parent [-]

Why would the base state be "No cryptography, no communication, no information" and not "No cryptography, communication, information?"

If we assume a default state of avoiding engagement, the average poker player is giving away more information that could lead to correct inferences by playing than bad information by bluffing. Exactly at which point does the lie happen?

	▲	bawolff 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Why would the base state be "No cryptography, no communication, no information" and not "No cryptography, communication, information?" Because you treated cryptography as a field in its entirety. I think in practise that is how cryptography as a field works normally. Most secret messages communicated with crypto simply wouldn't be communicated (or just communicated in person) without the availibility of cryptography. Even if the alternative is communicating in a way open to evesdropping i think there is still an intent requirement. > Exactly at which point does the lie happen? When there is intentionality to mislead (including by omission). If you want to be really nitpicky, the definition i would give would be: Taking (or failing to take) some action for the purpose of causing an adversary to have incorrect or incomplete beliefs that benefit you.

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BoiledCabbage 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

So you're trying to manipulate people into believing false things about you?

Is that better or worse than calling it deception?

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seizethecheese 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I wouldn’t consider the type of deception fully within the bounds of a game the type of deception I would want to avoided teaching my kids.

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TZubiri 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

or "fraud" or "misrepresentation. No, these would be synonyms.

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ghostly_s 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I’m not sure what meaningful distinction you think you're making between verbally lying and implicitly lying with your bet but it's quite tedious.

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gretch 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

You inferred it, but it's not implied.

Instead of thinking of a bet as saying "I have good cards" think of it instead as "I have an advantage in this pot", which is not a lie.

In poker advantages can come from cards, or from other objective measures such as position, stack size. And of course from subjective measures like being able to read your opponent.

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c22 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

If reading your opponent is a strategy that confers advantage then it stands to reason that deceiving your opponent is as well.

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marksimi 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I feel one of the most useful skills picked up by poker that people don't explicitly speak about is managing your information effectively.

Deceiving my opponent has the connotation of this happening in one instance. After you realize that you can't convincingly deceive your opponents in poker into perpetuity, it becomes a game of managing your image —revealing the right information while being conscious of information that you shared in the past (if you're playing someone skilled or perceptive, that is).

On the flip side, what an excellent game to help people pay attention to signals, figure out how to weigh them appropriately, and appropriately act on them when the situation calls for it.

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gretch 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The original claim is that people misconceive "that poker is about lying or that you need to lie to play poker"

Just because other people may try to lie to you, does not mean that you need to lie in order to succeed.

No one said "lying can't be used at all"

	▲	TZubiri 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		My claim is a bit stronger, not only can you play without lying, but you don't sacrifice anything, you can play at top level without lying, and you gain no advantage by lying. In essence at optimal play you ignore whatever your opponent says, there is only the bets and game actions, which are independent from the cards held.

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kqr 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Skilled players read their oppononts' hands (i.e. the cards they're holding), not the opponents themselves.

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cman1444 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

But one of the most common strategies is to posture as if you have a good hand even though in reality you don't. That is deception.

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TZubiri 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

By posture do you mean act verbally and physically? Or bet as if you had a good hand?

The first is mostly inconsequential in poker, you should avoid having tells in your posture and speak, but the goal is to avoid conveying information about your hand, not conveying false information about it to deceive.

The second is just the game itself, acting as if you had strong cards has a cost, and is not lying, when you bet you are not saying "I have a hand". In a sense you may bet with a bad hand, but you are more forcing your opponent to pay for a chance to win the pot on account of your hand potentially containing a strong hand. You are truthful in your representation of a potential strong card.

In fact if you were to bluff on a situation were you could not ever have held a strong hand, it would be a mistake, and you would stand to lose expected value.

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gretch 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The original claim is that people misconceive "that poker is about lying or that you need to lie to play poker"

The claim is not that deception can be used as a strategy at all. That btw is actually an uninteresting claim. In almost all games, you can lie to your opponent and probably gain some advantage.

If I were coaching a beginner poker player, I would honestly tell them to play statistically sound poker. That's a good way to make a lot of money.

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bawolff 5 days ago | parent [-]

Sure its a spectrum, but i think poker is fundamentally much more about deception than say monopoly is.

	▲	kqr 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Only in the sense that poker is more about anything than Monopoly is!

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mcphage 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Sure—but when you say it like that, suddenly it’s not a bad skill at all to tach your children, and teach them to be wary of others using it.

	▲	Talanes 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, it's basically the main thing I was taught to do to avoid any chance encounters with (animal) predators growing up: walk confidently and present as a fellow predator and not a prey animal.

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seizethecheese 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s not tedious at all. Many games have structural information asymmetry, and part of the fun is navigating this. To add an extra verbal lie is categorically different from playing within the bounds of the game

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quantified 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's an essential skill in life anyway, but you also teach the usual ethics and morals and come down hard on them when you catch them in a meaningful lie.

You never got away with anything as a teenager?

	▲	anitil 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think it's also considered a developmental milestone as lying requires a pretty sophisticated theory of mind, and an understanding of the perspective of another person

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bawolff 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd be more concerned about encouraging gambling.

Bluffing and detecting bluffing is a useful skill as long as used morally. Sort of like learning martial arts - just because we teach kids karate doesn't mean we want them to go around beating people up.

Gambling however can very easily ruin lives and be very adicting.

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thinkingtoilet 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ha. I got news for you. They are going to learn that playing poker or not.

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blitztime 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’d say bluffing in poker isn’t really lying. I mean you certainly can look at it that way, but another way to look at it is “I have good hands here more often than you do so here strategically you have to fold when I bet”

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jayknight 5 days ago | parent [-]

The difference between a lie and a surprise is that soon everyone will know what the surprise was. A lie has the intention of concealing the truth forever.

	▲	kqr 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Correct, and a bluff is not intended to last forever. Bluffing is revealed eventually, because you can only have a pair of aces so often, statistically speaking. At that point, the table awareness of the bluff is still profitable because it forces others to bet into your strong hands. A bluff that is revealed is just as good as one kept secret. Many people seem to misunderstand this.
	▲	Talanes 5 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		We tell plenty of lies that aren't intended to hold up forever — whether it's a lie to a stranger that you hope to be away from before the lie becomes apparent, or a lie to a acquaintance that you hope is small enough that the social friction of confronting you over it would be worse than the lie.
	▲	tasuki 4 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> A lie has the intention of concealing the truth forever. Is that a thing... in English? Or in some specific part of the world?
	▲	cman1444 5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Well I guess you better hope your kid kindly shows their hand after you fold to their shove.

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bamboozled 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The world order is falling apart and being an intelligent person makes you a target of the "anti-elite". I think teaching kids strategy and deception has never been more important.

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kqr 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As someone else pointed out, bluffing is not lying. Bluffing is about applying some randomness to your betting patterns to force your opponents into overbetting slightly on average.

Lying would be trying to introduce a negative correlation between hand strength and bet size; bluffing is merely removing some of the positive correlation that exists.

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5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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