Slips of the tongue and gut feeling: when to trust intuition

In the analysis of the emotional school we touched on the unnaturalness typical of inexperienced blacks. The same principle works very well when analysing what exactly a person says. This lesson is about two "informal" ways of finding colour: slips of the tongue, which can be heard, and intuition, which can be heard only from inside. The first gives a checkable fact, the second calls for caution.

Slips: what they are and why they happen

If at the start of a speech a player gives one earlier speaker one colour, and in the same minute gives a different reading, we are looking at mafia. Such slips happen because objective reality conflicts with the picture of the game that the black is creating. The person knows he is saying something untrue, and his original opinion differs from the position he voices. Self-control weakens and the true meaning slips out.

For a black, the minute is three tasks at once: invent a version, keep it in your head and watch the table's reaction. A red only has to say what he thinks, and needs no memory for it. So memory errors and "sliding off" a version are statistically more frequent in the mafia (a note from the Academy explaining the author's observation).

Example: "I did not like player No. 2..." (and at the end of the speech) "I will play in the team of No. 1, No. 2, No. 6."

Another example. One of the sheriffs found a black (No. 7) on the first night, and after the balance, in a round of five, he says in his speech: "No. 7 was rather black, No. 2 is black and No. 5 is a false sheriff: the mafia trio." Here is a slip: the seventh player cannot be "rather" black, he is checked. The thinking of a real sheriff would not let such a phrase out, so we are probably facing a mafia player who in his minute slightly forgot whom he had checked.

One of the most common slips is mixing up a number ("I did not like player No. 3", while No. 3 is his own slot). Statistically the mafia slips more than civilians.

The author's warning: not every slip is the same. One can be made by a civilian from stress, another only by the mafia. This has to be tried and understood in practice.

Kinds of slips (the Academy's classification)

The author gives examples, and for training it helps to sort them by type.

A contradiction inside the minute. The colour of a slot at the start of the speech does not match the final team at the end. The most reliable type: you heard both fragments yourself.
A violation of a known fact. The player speaks about a checked slot as if the colour were unknown to him ("rather black" about a slot he checked himself). This is knowledge that a real sheriff cannot "forget".
Mixed-up numbers. A player calls his own slot suspicious or mixes up neighbours. Stress can also produce this error, so one case is not yet a conclusion.
A mismatch with the previous round. The player cites a reason that did not exist or attributes to a slot words it did not say. To check this you need a record of the game (on the tournament sheet or in memory), which is why the habit of taking notes is useful.
A slip about the role. A player says "we civilians" at a moment when on his version he is on the other side, or vice versa. Such phrases often pop out in emotional arguments.

How to handle a slip at the table (the Academy's explanation)

Remember it word for word. Do not interpret at once, just repeat the phrase and the slot number to yourself. In half a minute you will remember the meaning, not the words.
Ask, do not accuse. A calm question "You said X at the start and Y at the end. Which version is right?" gives the mafia a chance to get more tangled. A red more often explains without fuss.
Compare with other observations. One slip is a signal, two combined with another fact are already a line. Do not build the whole count of the game on a single phrase.
Do not use it against a weak speaker. A beginner and a person with poor diction slip from nerves. Assess how profitable the mistake is for the speaker: a slip against his own version is more suspicious than a neutral one.
Do not overdo it. The author warns directly: not every slip is the same. If you gather hands against a player only because of one error in a number, the table may decide you choose the victim arbitrarily.

Example (written for the Academy). A round at nine. Player No. 5: "No. 2 is red, No. 3 is red, but No. 8 raises questions, he never explained his vote. I nominate No. 2." The phrase "No. 2 is red" and the nomination of No. 2 in one minute contradict each other. A red in such a situation usually catches the error himself ("I misspoke, I nominate No. 8"). A black sometimes stays silent because another plan is already in his head. You have the right to ask a question and watch how he answers.

Choosing by gut

Intuition (gut feeling) is a rather interesting process. The subconscious suggests the right decision bypassing reasoning. It stores an array of data, and by the principle of correspondence it gives a version, red or black player, because he acts like civilians or mafia in your experience. Or, in terms of non-verbal behaviour, a person feels that a player is a civilian because the person's manifestations match what he has seen before. The process is hard to put into words and to find arguments for: you must draw the knowledge out of the subconscious and convey it so that others take your personal experience into account.

An important caveat from the author: in most cases gut feeling suggests not the right decision but the one that benefits the person himself. Examples:

In the guessing round sit your friend and an arrogant player you do not like. Your gut will tell you to vote with your friend: it is more advantageous for you.
In the guessing round sit an experienced player from your club and a beginner. Your gut will tell you to "give away the victory" to the experienced one. ("Giving away the victory" means voting on principle with the one who played better, or against the one who should not win; the author calls this subjective nastiness.)
Before the game one of the players hurt you morally or made a wrong choice in the previous game. In the guessing round your gut will tell you to take revenge.
Earlier you ruined a game for one of those you are now left with in the guessing round. Intuition will advise you to vote with him to make amends.

So gut feeling should far from always be listened to. It acts on the basis of your own benefits, not the result of the game.

When gut feeling can be trusted (the Academy's explanation)

The author does not forbid intuition, he limits it. For practice it is handy to sort situations.

Gut feeling is more likely reliable when:

you do not know the players and have neither sympathies nor grudges;
it concerns the non-verbal side of the game rather than a choice in the guessing round: for example, "this person at the sheriff's round is looking the wrong way";
you have accumulated many games in this very format and can say what the picture resembles (at least "like in the game where...").

Gut feeling is more likely unreliable when:

among the players there is a friend, a rival or a person to whom you owe something;
a tournament win is at stake and you are nervous;
you are tired, played many games in a row or have a strong mood;
you want the version to be true.

A simple test before voting. Ask yourself three questions. What fact from the game can I say aloud? Who benefits from my decision personally? Would I make this decision if a stranger sat at the table instead of an acquaintance? If there is no answer to the first question and the answer to the second is "me", it is better to put the gut feeling aside and return to the count.

How to bring a gut feeling out. If intuition suggests a colour but there are no words, find at least one observable sign: intonation, a pause, behaviour in the vote. "It seems to me" does not gather hands, but "he fell silent when his slot was named and changed the subject" does.

Summary on methods of finding colour

The author ends the description of strategies for finding colours, leaving a gigantic set of tools to work through. It is better to be really good with one or two than to know all of them a little. Many techniques work only in certain situations.

Application

Work out the mafia by slips.
Put gut feeling in doubt.
Play consciously.

Questions for self-check

In which situations can intuition be trusted and when not? What is the difference between these situations?
Give a couple more examples of slips.
How can you learn a player's colour from the vote? Which links do you know?
One of the main skipped methods is analysing the spread of hands in votes. How do you understand when it works and when it does not?

Practice

After each game write down three moments when you put your hand "by gut", and note whose benefit (yours or the team's) it served.
For three games keep a separate line "slips". Write the slot number, the phrase, the type of slip from the list above and the real colour after the game. After ten cases you will see which types work for you.
Take a recording of a game and find two phrases you consider slips. Explain aloud how they differ from ordinary inaccuracy.

Typical mistakes

Listening to your gut in the guessing round.
Taking any slip as a sign of mafia.
Forgetting that gut feeling benefits you personally.
Building the count of the game on one phrase.
Accusing a beginner of a slip caused by nerves.

Source of the idea. The chapter "Other methods of finding the mafia and civilians" from Dmitry Novik's book "Mafia in the Style of Zen" (2020). The classification of slips, the order of working with them, the conditions for trusting gut feeling, the test before voting and the example were written for the Academy.