The below stories are listed chronologically.

1.  The tray of Doughnuts ... or lesson on manipulating people with guilt 

In High School I was on the Math Team and we would go to various schools and have competitions.  A very important part of these events was the refreshment period which occurred after all the math questions were finished and we would wait for results. Generally a table would be set aside for each team and a tray of goodies would be on each table when we finished the rounds of competition.  In this instance, our team and the others filed in and took a table and began to grab the refreshments on our respective tables.  I noticed that seemingly the organizers had miscounted or a team had not shown up and indeed there was a distant empty table with a full tray of goodies on it just going to waste.  I being a no-waste kind of guy and always wanting to look out for our team, casually got up and inconspicuously was making my way over to this unused treasure trove ... when I noticed a very uncool guy almost running toward the same treasure trove and immediately realized that I had no hope of overtaking him even if I broke into a dash.

I just stopped, put on a very stern countenance, and yelled "What do you think you are doing?  Those aren't yours!"
The evil deed perpetrator was so guilt ridden (this was indeed 1963 Puritan Massachusetts) that he skidded to a stop, said that he was sorry, lowered his head, and turned about and penitently started walking back to his table.  I kept my stern evil eye on him until I knew he could never beat me back to the goodies table ... and then I ran to the table, scoffed up the tray of doughnuts, and rushed them back to our team's table.

It was so satisfying to see the shocked look on his face when he realized that he had been completely taken and there was absolutely nothing that he could do about it.   I always wondered how this lesson in life affected him; did I cause him to turn into a hopeless cynic or was this the first step in his well-rounded worldly education?

2.  The power of the mind ... or the predictability of a real Mathematician

In college as an undergraduate at MIT I majored in Math (I was really interested in Physics but did not want to take all the Physics and even Chemistry labs).  As a result I was often around mathematicians and often had math roommates.  One evening to relieve the usual routine I challenged my math major roommate (Louie Kauffman) that I could just by concentrating and by exerting my prodigious mental powers ... guess whether he was thinking of  "Heads" or "Tails".  Namely I was offering to do a mental version of flipping a coin ... I would just have to trust my subject not to lie (Louie was very principled and I trusted him).  He, of course, thought that this interruption was a bit strange and entirely unlikely, but he was willing to go along and see where it led.  So off we go ... He concentrates hard on his first choice, I wrinkle my brow and look frazzled and tell him "Tails" ... Correct ! ... He concentrates again ... I do my shtick ... "Tails" ...Correct !  Now this is 2 for 2 ... the random odds for this would be 1 out of 4.  Can this go on?  

To shorten the story ... it does go on and I get 10 for 10 correct !  
The random odds for that are 1 out of 1024 !

I clearly have proven myself to be an accomplished psychic and my subject's eyes are getting wider and he wants me to continue.  But I am getting nervous ... I don't know how much longer my luck can hold out and clearly I have proven my point if not created a legend ... why go on?

Indeed why I shouldn't go on is that I am getting to the end of the number of digits of "pi" and "e" that I am sure Louie as a mathematician would remember and might be using to pick "Heads" or "Tails" (instead of just letting his mind wander) ... and I was afraid he would switch to some other mathematical constant that was not as famous and which I couldn't guess.  Also I was already lucky enough in what I had guessed.  The key to this demonstration was that Louie was a real Mathematician ... hence instead of just letting his mind "randomly" think of heads or tails ... he likely would use a known at least pseudo random number to guide his choices for heads or tails.  I thought he would initially use "pi", 3.14159... to make his choices with an odd digit being "Tails" and an even digit being "Heads".  I was astounded that my guesses based on what I thought a mathematician would do were working ... my biggest problem was at digit 7 when I didn't know if Louie would remember more digits of "pi" or whether he would switch to another constant.  My guess was that he would switch to "e", 2.71828... which is the next most famous constant after "pi".  When I was correct on the 7th and 8th instance of this game, I was confident that my guess as to the switch was correct, but I didn't want to push ... I could probably rely on Louie to use the next few digits of "e" that most everyone knew ... but a string of 10 correct guesses seemed impressive enough to me.  Afterwards, when I asked Louie just what his rationale was for his choice of "Heads" and "Tails" it was exactly as I had supposed.  I was damn lucky ... but only because I was doing this with a real Mathematician.

A real mathematician can often be relied on to use the one most famous "random" number when he needs a random number ... which makes it very un-random indeed.  So you can sometimes use the predictable "rationality" of someone to your advantage.

3.  How to play a fish and land the prize ... or a limitation of a Genius Mathematician

When I was an undergraduate at MIT I was lucky enough to know some really smart people.  The smartest guy I knew was Harvey Friedman (more info).  He began as an undergraduate at MIT at ~ age15 ... somewhere around his junior year the faculty told him to not bother with an undergraduate degree ... just write up a thesis on what he was doing on the side and we will give you your PhD and you can get on with your life ... which he did and he got his PhD at age ~18.  It used to bother some people that Harvey would say that he (Harvey) was the smartest fellow around.  It mostly bothered those that seemed to think that they might be in contention for that designation.  It never bothered me since Harvey was just telling the absolute truth ... he WAS the smartest fellow around and the others that thought they were in contention weren't even close.

Anyways, Harvey and I used to play Ping Pong and Pool in the basement of our school housing facility. He was a very intense competitor and thinker in everything he did.  But ... he was still a bit young.  He liked to think big thoughts and postulate what might happen in various situations ... in Math and all sorts of other areas.  

Now Harvey's specialty was Mathematical Logic; it was not Psychology.  Harvey once asked what someone might do in a very morally distressing situation.  Could one be induced to do a shameful sinful act for perhaps a mere consideration of ... money?  Hearing the word money ... my ears perked up ... after all mankind, let alone womankind, has been doing shameful and sinful acts for considerations of personal benefit since Adam and Eve.  Harvey as a product of a privileged moneyed upbringing was little used to such acts, their considerations or even necessity.  Hmmm ...  So I asked what sort of terrible things he was thinking of.  

Eventually Harvey came up with the thought of walking naked outside in public as an instance of a terrible thing.  Note that this was about 1965, before the time of flower children and Woodstock.  After further discussions Harvey and I eventually came up with additional specifications of the act and the monetary compensation.  I, of course, would roll my eyes and gasp at how psychologically devastating it would be for anyone to do such a horrible thing and how huge an amount of money would be required to induce anyone ... let alone a rational moral MIT student with his whole career and a hoped for sane life before him.  Of course I was trying to get him to put up as much money as possible.  AND I wanted to minimize the chance of anyone else hearing about this possible profitable venture and them telling Harvey that they would do almost anything for $1.  So for an entire term we privately discussed the manifold consequences of this cataclysmic titanic mind-twisting moral dilemma ... I stressing the need for an immense amount of money to tempt someone to risk a potential total collapse of their psychic and moral structure.  We spent a ridiculous amount of time discussing the various parameters ... when, where, for how long, how fast, ... oh, the agony agony agony ...  (All for me to squeeze him for every nickel)  ...

Finally the deal was set.  Harvey would give me $50 (this was ~1965 when $50 might be close to $500 today) if at 8 o'clock at night I would walk around the outside of our large dorm building totally stark naked ... I could not run.  Note that our dorm was right in front of the main entrance to MIT on Mass Ave ... which was the busiest street around.  Harvey was particularly pleased that there was a bus stop in front our building and that at 7:58 there were about 12 people waiting for the bus.  Harvey was bubbling with glee at the thought of the psychic damage he was going to subject me to ... how he could study me for years hence to see my complete character disintegration ...  Well 7:59 came and so did the bus taking all the people away from the bus stop.  I wasn't concerned with that ... I was still concerned that someone would hear about the deal and offer to walk around the building naked on their hands ... and hence they would get the money rather than me.  Finally 8:00 came and I promptly, casually, and gladly made the naked circuit around the building with nary another thought except about the profit.  The only interesting thing was that when I got to the front of the building I met a guy and his girlfriend walking hand-in-hand in the opposite direction from me ... I met them again on the back part of the circuit and they were no longer holding hands and indeed were about 2' apart from each other ... the guy somewhat resignedly said to me "I thought we might meet you again".  Meanwhile, Harvey walked around the building ahead of me watching to see if I would just dissolve into a puddle of protoplasm when confronted with the reality of the assumed crushing psychic turmoil.

On completing the naked circuit I grabbed Harvey's $50 ... smiling all the way (that was me smiling, not Harvey).  I think Harvey began to realize then that perhaps I was not in as much psychic pain as he had expected ... and been led to believe.  I even think that he began to suspect the previously unconsidered possibility that I wasn't in any pain at all but rather gleeful at having scored a coup.

The reaction to the "stunt" was best summarized by another inmate of our dorm ... when he heard about it, he declared that "for $50 he would have walked the center line of Mass Ave naked at high Noon !!" ... and so would probably at least another dozen dorm denizens.

So the moral of the story is a genius Mathematician should stick to math and not bet on something outside his frame of experience and expertise ... his particular gift is very special and very rare ... BUT  there are limits.

I am pleased to say that from what I hear, Harvey has grown wiser in the ways of the world ... just not as fast as he got Mathematically wiser. 

4.  Hustling the Hustler ... but you can't get away with it for long

Then there was the time I was in Olongapo (a notorious town in the Philippines with numerous bars, bargirls, and other pleasures ... with everything for sale ... if it was made out of metal, wood, or flesh, it was available and very cheap).  As I mentioned in 3 above, I had, perhaps unfortunately, played a little pool in my undergraduate years.  Being a math and physics kind of guy, I learned a few trick shots ... and I became an occasional fairly good but never really good player. 

This evening I happened to wander into a pool hall for a change and watched a few of the players and eventually asked if anyone wanted to play a game.  Not surprisingly a local hanger-on said that he would like to play but that he needed to play for a little money just to pay for his time.  I said "Sure" ... since it wasn't expensive ... and we played a few games.  I was actually fairly comfortable in that he was probably only a little better than me even though I could see that he was playing me like a fish, letting me win a couple, then he would win one just by a little.  He let me win another then said he wanted to raise the bet so he could get even.  Clearly he is trying to hustle me.  Meanwhile I am playing my usual so-so game which wasn't bad.  I was interested in seeing if he was really good when he uncorked it.  It turned out as I said that he was better but not a real pro ... and I was getting a little lucky.  He was ahead, then I caught up, he got ahead and then he missed a shot that left the ball I needed to pocket to win just off a pocket but the straight line path to the ball was completely blocked by another ball ... I don't think it was intentional; it just happened.  But as luck would have it the cue ball and my game ball were almost exactly in position for a 4-cushion trick shot that I knew how to make using the inlaid diamonds in the side of the table to calculate adjustments ... and which would by virtue of its circuitous route avoid the obstructing ball.  So with the hustler looking amused at my impossible situation I fussed around, made adjustments to my aim and smoothly stroked the cue ball on its obviously peculiar wayward way.   The cue ball went off a cushion at the far end of the table, then off the adjacent cushion then back down the table to the opposite end, then to the adjacent cushion, and then just gently and beautifully kissed the game ball into the pocket, coming at it sideways.  The situation just happened to be the one in a million that by happenstance I knew and I had indeed been lucky that it went so nicely.

The hustler's jaw dropped and his eyes widened ...  I said "Well how about that ... sometimes you just get lucky".  He clearly didn't believe me.  None of the others that were casually watching the game (because they had nothing better to do) believed it was just "luck" either ... it was just too incredible of a shot.  I asked what he wanted to bet on the next game ... and he said no ... he did not want to play again.  Then he quickly put out the call "Go get Hector".  This was the pinnacle of my achievement as a pool player ... The hustler was convinced that he had just been hustled by, of all people, me.  So I thought I might as well play up to that characterization and act like what I thought an "Aw shucks, that was just luck" kind of hustler would do ... and did so.

So the call went out for "HECTOR ....".  And a big door to a back room at the pool hall opened and here came HECTOR.  Smooth and slick; tall and sharp ... Hector did not waste any time ... he just strode over and said "Lets play".  I, trying to keep up the act of my new found role, but not wanting to waste any more money when the executioner had probably just shown up ... just smiled and said, "Sure".  Hector wasn't brought out to try to hustle me for a few more dollars, he was there just to see if I could really play or not.  Needless to say he vaporized me in one game, turned, and just wordlessly walked away back through the door to the back room.  He had proven his point and nothing more was needed.  Thankfully there was no need (as in the movie The Hustler) to break my fingers since clearly I couldn't really play and would never be a threat.

But I had my time in the sun:  one Philippino pool hustler for one moment thought that I had hustled him.  Man that felt good.   

5.  To be continued ... maybe ...