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If people at the table ask, I tell them I'm a lawyer from New York City. Both statements are true. I am a lawyer. I am from NYC.

As I wrote a few weeks ago about ditching the iPod and trying to engage people in lively banter, I've realized that part of my "job" when I'm playing poker is to make the people around me relax and feel comfortable. Tourists playing for the first time in a casino (or on their annual trip to a casino) get very edgy when playing at a table full of locals. On the other hand, if they feel that you're "one of them" they relax more and don't worry about tangling with you as much.

It's not a stretch for me to make those statements about myself. I am still a licensed lawyer. I consider myself from New York City since I lived there for almost 15 years. The facts that I now live in Las Vegas and work in poker are carefully and conveniently omitted. (You'd think I'd have a problem if they asked where I was staying, but they almost never do.) And I am perfectly happy to carry on any discussion about NYC or about my old line of work in order to further the image.

I doubt that these lies will bring a chorus of detractors upon me the way PokerGrump's recent post about H1N1 did -- because mine are not a matter of life and death. They're about separating someone who has made a conscious decision to gamble some money from that money. But the thrust of it is similar. Lying is one of the first life skills that young children learn. Many things in life boil down to asking the right questions and believing the responses you get.