8 Ways To Tell The Perfect Lie

6. ... Poisoned Pawn

In Chess, a 'Poisoned Pawn' is a pawn moved in the opening of the match, whose capture is intended by the player as part of a grander scheme to gain positional advantage or capture a more powerful piece from the opposition later on. In this running scenario I'm using of the detective undercover, (s)he is, in of themselves, a poisoned pawn. The key to utilising a poisoned pawn successfully is convincing the other player that its capture is of small consequence, or, taking it a step further, that the threat of it being poisoned acts as a deterrent, allowing you to maintain positional advantage. When lying to someone whom is already expecting you to lie, presenting calculating risk is imperative, however, to create a risk that is universally accepted as one worth taking, it must become, as they say in snooker, "a shot to nothing". This means a difficult pot attempt that would usually be avoided being taken on as there is no perceivable positional advantage the opposition player could receive, should you miss. Scenario: Our detective is captured intentionally by the criminals and interrogated. During this, he proposes a meeting with his "employer"- a universally renowned hacker, capable of bringing them access and money. Immediately, it sound tempting; except for the issue that the hacker could be a plant ready to infiltrate their own system, should they grant access. Instead, the captured detective agrees to act as an auxiliary; meaning every action the hacker takes must be vetted through the detective, whom is under the criminals control. They can respond to her every request and proposal. They can back out at any time and kill the detective. They wont, however because the hacker wont to anything to antagonise them- rather, will gain their cooperation through example. The key to all this? The detective- our poisoned pawn- appears defenceless. Irrelevant. A tool. So long as (s)he remains that way whilst building other tendrils, the 'in' remains intact. In more everyday scenarios a poisoned pawn, when being lied to, would come in the form of an emotional ploy of helplessness; a cheating husband tells his wife that he was working late, the risk she takes in believing him is the sacrifice of her own self-respect, if she's wrong. It becomes far easier to take this risk, if the husband tells his wife, she's "all he has". The wife can attack him and take him on for lying, again, at this point, should she choose but the potential guilt she'll feel later on for accusing him, should she be wrong (even though she's not) will overwhelm the urge to attack. Furthermore, if she does attack, he can turn the blame onto her for their problems for not having any faith in him to begin with. Emotional manipulators use these types of ploys all the time. "Passion rules reason, for better or for worse". That's the Wizard's Third Rule.