After Monday Night Football was over, I was flipping through channels until I came across this Fox show called 'Lie to me'. The angle of the show is that this team of people, led by Tim Roth, can determine when you are lying through their research and observational skills. They are able to read the clues embedded in the human face, body and voice to expose the truth and lies in criminal investigations. On the surface, it would seem this would be an amazing skill to have. Certainly in poker, we would all love to always be able to tell when our opponent is bluffing. We could see right through them and make millions. Or would we?
To me, lying and truth are much more complicated elements. We lie each and every day. It is a social requirement. We make little white lies to the people around us. It is a necessary skill at home, school, and work. We deceive others of our true intentions, opinions and desires. They are lies of convenience. They aren't meant to really hurt anyone badly. If anything, they are meant to spare others and yourself needless conflict. We employ them with those we are close to as well as those we aren't.
There are also lies of self deception. We lie to ourselves. We will say we will do something that deep down we don't want to do and will most likely not do. We will claim some goal that is highly unrealistic, if previous behavior is examined. We can promise one thing, then reconsider later. Was the original promise a lie, or just a momentary thought reconsidered? Further complicating factors are the sins of omission, where we don't tell a lie or the truth but simply omit something.
Relating these back to poker, could you really use the purported 'Lie to me' skills to always make the right read? What about players who don't know where they stand in a hand? How do we interpret their moves? They may wrongly feel they are ahead, so they don't exhibit the classic tells of a bluffer. Similarly are those that bluff with the best hand. They put out a bet thinking they are behind and can push you off the hand, but they, in fact, have the best hand. Complicating things further in poker, most aspiring players are taught to minimize their tells through controlling, masking and creating unreadable routines in their play (e.g. hat, sunglasses, same size bets, same timing etc.).
While the show often portrayed these deception revealing skills almost as magic, in most instances, they were unable to prevent something catastrophic from happening. Their interpretations of other people's intentions are clouded by their own. Their personal lives and lies affect the clean interpretation and possible proactive action. So it is in poker and life.
We often tell our kids not to lie, but are those really the skills that best help them achieve their goals? Where is the balance of harmless to harmful lies? Who is to be the judge? In some instances, it's like the famous Jack Nicholson's quote in 'A Few Good Men'..."you can't handle the truth". If we all expressed our true thoughts and opinions constantly, society and relationships would suffer greatly and conflict would increase exponentially.
I want to make it clear that I prefer a world that expresses their true thoughts in a civil manner, over one that deceives at every opportunity, but I also have lived long enough to see it's a much more complicated scenario too. While the almost magical skills of the 'Lie to me' team seems desirable, the ability to read others is rarely that transparent or free of danger.
*** On an unrelated note, I put up an interview today with Dani 'Ansky' Stern from the '2 Months. 2 Million' show that airs Wednesdays at 8 pm ET on G4, that you might enjoy.
