I'm always fascinated by these tricks of game theory.

e.g. in business school, the dean of the undergraduate school had this story:

"When I was a practicing lawyer working on wills and estates, people would often ask me to cut someone completely out of their will.

I would always say that a better option was to write something like 'To my daughter Susan, I leave $1,000. She always said that she wanted to be financially independent from me so this is an amount to show her I lover her.'

Clients would always think this would send the wrong message and I would replay:

'No, no. If Susan fights the will and says she should have gotten more, the judge will say: but she clearly left you something and pointed out that she loved you AND took your wishes into account' "

I wish there was a book or collection of these types of tricks to study.

There’s A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend Them Back by Bruce Schneier

https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393866667

My estate lawyer told me that, to prevent challenges, he advised clients to add a clause directing that anyone contesting the will would be excluded completely from the estate.

Wait I thought standard practice was to leave $1 to show that they were considered and purposefully removed from the will? Does that fail in court?

Multiple times in my life, a potential romantic interest asked how big it was, and I told them it was tiny. This led them to believe that it was large, because what guy who is tiny would say it was tiny?

Suffice to say they were a bit disappointed when expectations met reality

idk if that would work in real life. there are cases where one sibling gets less than another and judges still rule things have to be split equitably and children should be provided for.