The “mheibes”, or the great Iraqi bluff

Four o'clock in the morning, a breeze has picked up around the stadium near the center of Baghdad, but Qaid Al-Sheikhli is still sweating under his dishdasha [a long tunic that reaches down to his ankles]. He has been playing for nearly six hours in the quarterfinals of a mheibes championship, one of the most demanding games in the world in terms of mental strength. His team, Al-Sa'doun, is trailing by ten points. And the clock is ticking.

Listening to the rules, the game doesn't seem difficult, but it does seem impossible. Facing Al-Sheikhli are 45 men lined up in three rows. One of them is hiding a silver ring in one of his hands. Al-Sheikhli's mission: to find out which man holds the ring, and in which hand, by examining only his face and body language.

Al-Sheikhli has already made good progress: with his team's other captain, he has already narrowed the selection down to four people. A referee in a red jacket stands nearby with a stopwatch. Each team has only five minutes to find the ring—that's the rule this year. Once the time is up, the opposing team scores a point.

Al-Sheikhli focuses on one of the last players, a middle-aged man dressed in a sky-blue tunic. “The ma