Northern Table as Con Game

The essential question in any confidence game is: "Why me?" The pay-off is well and good, everybody wants money; but the mark, to be manipulated, must have his residual caution subverted. In moments of sanity, he thinks: "Wait a minute, anybody would want this money, why have these philanthropists come to me?" To be able to answer this sad objection is the mark of the great conman.

From the teachings of David Mamet.