olegru

Incidents happened all the time. Players land in the majestic contracts as a result of partnership misunderstanding; Players miscount their points to stop in the only makeable contract; Players chose the superlucky bluffs. And so on and so forth… Every of this incidents could look suspicious, but does not prove anything. Any of us was in these positions. We can get lucky on a single strange board, but more often we are losing because of our mistakes. But sometimes we can see something different: 1. Best leads in almost 100% cases. 2. Different actions in the similar positions always in a lucky match with partners hand. 3. 1 major – (2 minor) – double, double could be penalty or negative depends what they need in the current board. 4. Some actions that have no explanations other than external knowledge. 5. Excessive number of doubles and redoubles 6. Incredible stats. These are kind of cases we are talking about. [[[[[[ ALL THE EXAMPLES DELETED.... WHAT PART OF THE FIRST POST WHERE I DELETED SPECIFIC EXAMPLES WAS NOT CLEAR. IF ANYONE WANTS TO GO ON A CHEATER HUNT, GO RIGHT AHEAD. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO DISCUSS CHEATING AND CHEATING ISSUES YOU MUST DO IT SUCH THAT THE HANDS CAN BE FOUND "EASILY" ON MYHANDS. THESE EXAMPLES, GIVEN THE OP, ARE TOO EASY TO FIND. THIS ALSO MEANS YOU CAN NOT POST ANY HANDS YOU PLAYED ON LINE THAT IS STILL AVAILABLE IN MYHANDS (ONE YOU KIBITZ, ONE YOU FIND IN YOUR CHEATER HUNT ARE OK, BUT NOT OF A PAIR THAT IS EASILY OUTED WITH LINKS IN THIS FORUM. THE BEST THING TO DO IS TO REPORT THE ALLEGED CHEATER TO ABUSE AT BRIDGEBASE DOT COM. ]]]]]]]]]] These people are not "too subtle to be caught." :) And as for practice I am completely disagree with you. It is a big disadvantage to play against cheaters even in tearm of practice. It is just completely different game. Look at examples above. 1. You cannot deduce anything about opponents hand based on his bids and leads, because they unrelated to his own cards. 2. No reasons to preempt 3. No reasons to bid close games You are learning nothing playing this kind of game, just losing time and selfconfidence.

Sorry, missed the word "balanced" in the original description. I really hope he would not rebid 1NT with that hand :)

ACBL online game. I am playing with partner I played before. We are using weak (11-14) 1N opening. From experience I learn that if my partner open 1 minor with 15-17 points, he will rebid 1NT after my 1 major reply to show his points range even with 4 cards support for my major. My partner open 1♦ and by some reason I decided it is a good time to bluff with 1♥ reply with 2 small ♥. We don’t have any history of this kind of psych bids; I don’t think I ever psyched with him as a partner at all. But I have an additional safety based on his tendency described above. Is my psych bid still legal?

From my experience people who interrupt explanations this way are usually “good guys.” They just don’t want UI to spoil the board even for their benefit.

♠ AKQ432 ♥ 105 ♣ AJ ♣ Q75 1NT, anyone? - I opened. ;) Yes, you saw it right, my actual hand was: ♠ AKQ432 ♥ 105 ♦ - ♣ AQJ75 We got a very good score on the board, but friendly opponents did not think to summon a director. Idea to call a doctor discussed quite a while. Sorry for off-topic

In a self-alerted environment if: 1. We have an agreement (explicit or implicit) I will alert and explain agreement; 2. We have no agreement, but I have reasonable expectation that partner has better chances compare to opponents to understand my bid correctly I will always alert and explain “I hope it is …” 3. Chances for opponents to get my bid correct are as good as my partners there is no any obligations to me to give opponents unfair advantage by providing additional information compare to my partner. Sometimes I can make selfalert and put “no agreement” in the box. But that is it. In BBO games third case at least as often as any of others. By the way there is a good term used in the editorial article of the latest TBW to descried policy you are advocating “ethical unsportsmanlike dumping.”

I was very surprized by this too. :)

Cannot register. >200 posts are not enough? ;)

Yes, but what make you think that South thought he played 12-14 NT if he said he had upgraded the hand and both CC confirm 15-17 NT range?

I am confused here. On what basis are you going to adjust result other than you don’t like the NS bidding? I see no deviations in this board. You cannot prohibit players bid as bad as they wish. Director should not punish them for unreasonable upgrading or downgrading of their cards. It could be case of MI, but even NS actual agreement is not 15-17, there is no damage in this particular board. It is a good idea to record this for future cases and lecture NS to correct their announcement. I can change my opinion if there is additional evidence that South have a habit to forget his agreements but it was not mentioned.

If you play this board with partner similar to mine favourite one or me you would not care too much about inability to find the slam using whatever methods. Your primary concerns would be to stay out of grand. ;)

Hi, Incomplete team (Igor Milman-Oleg Rubinchik - Albert Shekhter) is looking for a reasonable player or pair from district 24 to compete in GNT open this Sunday. Please post here or left me message on BBO.

“Dad, how you find the volume of the solid obtained by rotating the region bounded by the given curves about the x-axis?” “Pap, could you bring me a tea?” “My God this Internet is so slow! Oleg, could you come here and fix it?” “Woof” (translation: “You need only one hand to play bridge and easily can pet me at the same time.”) “Dad, what about y-axis?” “Could somebody answer the f@@@n phone!?” “Pap, could you bring me a tea?” “Woof” (translation: “Why did you stop petting me?”) “I am from Global Help Desk. Sorry to bother you this time we got a call from user…” … Yep, it needs skills to manage concentration during the online play.

I was under impression that abuser never get informed by abuse team about person who fill out the complaint. But I easy can imagine paranoid player who always suspects something dirty is going on and simply not comfortable with kibitzer on his table. Advice to more kibitz matches with star players was a good one. >> Cayne matches? Are you referring to matches involving jec? Yes, matches involving jec hosted by LLANDE

As for second example, abuser had some reasons to be really annoyed, his partner bids in board in question were way out of line. Sure it cannot completely excuse him, but …

I talk to head director and he fixed the issue. Actually he was working on fixing it when I came to talk about this board. Apparently I was not the only one complaining about that and there there were additional issues I did not know. Anyway just posting this message to admit his good job. http://clubresults.acbl.org/Results/232132/2012/01/120128A.HTM Now there is the correct board 33 (board I actually played) in the scoresheet.

It was the simultaneous ACBL-wide 1 International Fund Game.

3♠ from W made. Opponents had misdefended.

I is what I did yesterday. Reply was "I don't know. Talk to head director." ;)

Sorry, my English is far from the perfect. I don’t know the exact set of circumstances. As a player I am following the Directors instructions and I have no way to know about exact decisions taken by Director until he informed me about them. And things look confusing because they are confusing.  There was too much mess for the single board. By word “protocol” I meant the scoresheet, sorry. Basically this thing: http://i42.tinypic.com/4rq3qr.jpg Now, I believe, I understand the set of circumstances better and it looks more like computer score problem for me. I will put all my finding together one more time. Hopefully it is more comprehensible now. 1. 1 round. Board 21 started on the table 11. 3 bids made. 11EW pair left the table (I have no ideas why and where). New pair 11EW arrived. East complained about bid made. Director replaced board 21 by board 27 and instructed to skip this board and have a late play. 2. Boards moved to table 10. I don’t have information what board been played on the table 10. It definitely was not the board drown on the web site, because result 11 trick by EW is not reachable there. 3. Board moved to table 9. They played the same board as a table 10. 4. Something happened after third round because the next table 8 played the different board. And this second board is not the board drown on the web site too. 5. Starting this moment we have 2 different sets of result in the scoresheet for the board 21: The first 2 marked as F, and the rest marked as G. In the scoresheet this board marked as 21 but board with number 27 in use. 6. After the last round we have the late play. I am pretty sure we played the same board with other field except tables 10 and 9. 7. Director manually enters our result on the board but does not specify if it belong to F or G group. I guess he did not realize that the late board is the same board he already had so much troubles with. 8. Now system sees 3 different sets of results in the scoresheet. Set F played on the tables 9 and 10. Set G played on tables from 1 to 8. And set with no letter played on the table 11 only. With no comparison available system automatically assigned ave+/ave+ 9. Director did not make any decisions about adjusting our result, this “decision” was made by computer system and, I guess, Directors had never noticed it. Now, I notice all this mess in a couple of days. Could anything be done at this moment?

ACBL-wide International Fund Game in club. The first round. We are 1 minute late. Director instructed us to play EW on the table 11. I am not sure what happened, but 3 bids already are on the table, 1♥ from N, 2♦ from my partner and double from S. Director ask my partner if he has any objection and he does. (Nobody asked, but problem was we are playing Raptor and for us 2♦ intervension deny 4 cards ♠.) After some thoughts director instruct us to play board 22 and have the late board (number 27) after the last round. If I am not mistaken Director decided to use opportunities given by 1st round and simply decided to replace the fouled board by another one. We followed instructions and got the result of the board. (Opponents misdefended). Our result is in protocol (http://clubresults.acbl.org/Results/232132/2012/01/120128A.HTM , board 21) but matchpoint score of the board has nothing to do with board result and looks suspiciously like 60%-60%. Unfortunately we never got informed about any adjustments I can only guess what happened. Board diagram in the protocol on web page is the original board 21, not one we played. I have no information what board was actually played on other tables and why director decided to adjust our score. If you will look at final results you will see that result of that board (between eventual 1st and 3rd place) very heavily affected the final distribution of the first 4 places. Because no full protocols were available on the club (only results for each pair) and no information was provided by Director I did not see problem in time and just accidently notice it looking in the protocol on WEB site. What actually should be done? Could I do anything now?

Could I share my own old story about one of the first attempts to play in club in NY? (Me and my partner both Russians now living in NY ) My Partner: “1 ♣” Olegru: “Alert!” RHO: “Precision?” Olegru: “No. Polish club, 11+ points, 1 round forcing, could be short.” RHO: “Pass” Olegru: “1 ♥” No alert RHO (visibly annoyed, in her partners turn to bid): “What is it?” My Partner: “7+ points, 4+ hearts.” RHO waving hand letting her partner to bid LHO: “Pass” Partner: “1NT” RHO: “What is it?” Olegru: “11-14 points, balanced. Treat our bidding exactly the same like it was the Standard.” PHO: “Pass” Olegru: “Pass” PHO (thundering): “Director, I don’t understand this bidding!” Director came. Investigate our convention cards (both on the table). Asked if 1 ♣ bid was alerted. (It was). Check my cards, check my partner cards. Director: “This guy has balanced 11 points; this has balanced 7 points with 4 cards heart.” Director leaving. I am (and I guess my partner too) shocked what instead of reading our agreements from CC, director gives them information about our actual hands, and giving much more than available from the bidding, but it is not the end of story. LHO: double (surprize, surprize). Partner slightly smiling and shakes the head. LHO (squeals): “Opponent laughs at us! This is not appropriate!” Director gives us a lecture about unacceptable behaviour in clubs. My attempt to share concerns about double and UI was ignored. I believe it is not a surprize that we are playing in club tournaments in average 2 times per year (qualification for NAOP and Instant matchpoints).

I am a little confused here. Description: "doubles at fourth levels are always for penalties, that they would double "whenever they see four [defensive] tricks". sounds for me like South will double with both: 1. Hand like he actually hold; and 2. Hand like: s. AKx h. Ax d. AQxx c. xxxx and everything in between. How they are going to investigate slams if North expected to pass the double with his actual holding? If NS are novices who are happy to accept 300 instead of vulnerable Grand I would accept with description of agreement without additional proof but otherwise would ask some questions to make sure actual agreement exists. I mean: 1. Unfortunate question was deviation; 2. It passed information about high probability of stack of hearts in the South hand; 3. This UI suggested Pass over slam investigation. 4. Opponents were damaged. If (according the NS system) pass was not the only possible bid for North (LA exist) bridge law dictates us to ajust the result, isn't it? And given description of agreement (without CC or system notes) looks to much self serving for me.

Because: a. He said so; b. All other people of his abilities judged this hand as gameforcing.

Absolutl agree. if there is LA suggested by partners hesitation - rule it. But if there is no LA - no punishment. what I want to say is - director should no assign the bad decission as aLA only. Because he does not like "clever" bid.