THE WORLD’S HARDEST BLUFFING GAME

Why are some Iraqis so good at figuring out when a person is lying?

- JASON ANTHONY

By 4 a.m., a breeze had begun to blow across the stadium near the center of Baghdad, but Qaid al-Sheikhli was still sweating through his dishdasha. He was six hours into a championship quarterfinals match of mheibes, one of the world’s most challenging mental sports. His team, al-Sa'doun, was down by 10 points. The clock was running out.

When you hear the game described, mheibes doesn’t sound difficult. It sounds impossible. Assembled on the court in front of al-Sheikhli were his opponents: 45 men from the city of Najaf, arranged in three neat rows. One of these players held a silver ring. It was al-Sheikhli’s job to determine which one— and in which fist he held the ring—judging only by his facial cues and other tells.

Al-Sheikhli had already made significant progress toward this goal: He and his fellow captain had narrowed the field of suspects to four. A referee in a red vest hovered nearby with a stopwatch. Each team started with just five minutes to find the ring, per that year’s tournament rules; if that time elapsed, their opponents got the point.

Now al-Sheikhli bore down on one of the remaining defenders, a middle-aged man in a light-blue robe. “Fists and face!” he barked in Baghdadi-accented Arabic. The Najaf player stretched out his arms, fists still clenched, and lifted his head to look into the captain's eyes. He held this pose for three seconds, as required by the tournament's rules, while al-Sheikhli scanned his face. “Taliq!” the captain cried, while slapping at the man’s two hands in quick succession. He thought the fists were empty, and he was right. When the man exposed his palms, al-Sa'doun fans in the bleachers rose to their feet, roaring in approval.