PhantomSac

Yeah sorry if I was unclear I meant I think France is next up to qualify for the Euros... didn't mean anything else.

Man I love life right now. This is not over either.

France is next on the list I believe

These are just the super obvious well known cheaters. It would be naive to think there aren't others out there who are not being super obvious and are cheating a little that have not even been detected.

for him it's bath-urst

At nationals/world championships/trials etc I room alone always but at regional I usually room with someone. Part of it is an age thing I think, all the young guys do this and very few of the older ones do. This kind of goes with most people in their 20s live with roommates (or their wife lol), even older for people in a place like nyc. I would guess I save about 10k a year by having a roommate at regionals and I also have fun hanging out with my friends and talking bridge and drinking heh. But I am becoming a lighter sleeper as I get older and am considering always rooming alone next year, so it's interesting that you said that. Of course as a teenager I would room off site to save money and we would have 4 to a room and have people on the floor crashing sometimes. Things and priorities change as you get older I guess :)

yeah I don't think you got it

exactly, maybe I overrate greg humphreys but he seems like a baller lol. it is hard for me to believe natural traffic took them down for so long. I mean the guy has an academy award and was baller at GOOGLE

lol if you think it's just the traffic bringing them down. they are being attacked for sure. This really is like a Hollywood movie

fisher and Schwartz announced that until they clear their name they will not play as partners but maintain their innocence. also seem to have a baller legal team and are suing boye who is still hiding in a secret location as per the recommendation of the Norwegian police. lol

pfft what were you thinking!

If the ACBL takes the view that they will trust the IBF findings and go with that they may be banned by the ACBL in that case. And the ebl and or wbf would almost certainly bar them as they are not in good standing with their nbo

For sure, bridge is a partnership game, and having a long partnership where youre on the same page and have lots of agreements is extremely important. That being said most of my boards are played at regionals, especially against Meck or Rodwell who I have probably played more against than I have against anyone else. I have played against Meck and Jim Hawkes, Meck and Compton, etc etc many times and my opinion of Meck in those times is that he is still much better than me. Also, I have changed partnerships a lot at nationals but I would say I have played maybe 100 tournaments with Kevin Bathurst. So lets say 350 boards a week times 100, so 35,000 boards of live bridge with him. That is a lot of bridge. We also room together frequently, lived together for a few years, etc, obviously nothing like the amount meckwell have played but that is still a lot of experience with someone. And my opinion is that the top pairs are better than us. But def having a long time partner helps and I'm sure Meck is better with Well than he is with anyone else because of their partnership. And yeah they have had very good teammates but there is a reason for that, it is a cyclical thing. You are right though I am now playing with my long time partner at nationals and on a very good team, if we play well and crush I might reconsider my viewpoint and think I am tier 1. But my read is 100 % from playing with and against these guys and knowing my own game, more than just well they are way more successful than me.

Still got a few cards to turn over before we see the royal :P But from his site he did say: "We will keep adding: Video clips Testimonies/reactions from third parties Suspect boards Detailed descriptions of the cheating methods" He also told the Norweigan press some of the ways they cheat (via google translate): " I sit on the videos that I shall present later. Some examples about that one player moves on the chair and that means they must play hearts. Other examples show that a player leaving in the sweater, which probably concerns that trump sitting askew. Yes, this can show the all-time scandal in Bridgeport history, says Brogeland." The whole point is that it should not be necessary to know how, and that the Larry Cohen idea of just using hands without the knowledge of how will stop this earlier and is equally effective. Boye has made it pretty clear he has figured out the how in this case, the problem is moving forward how to stop this much much faster. It looks like the ACBL is going to enact measures to do so (but obv it had nothing to do with what Boye did!). It also looks like the IBF has convened a special committee (but obv that had nothing to do with how Boye did this). If they ban F-S then the ACBL doesnt even need to do it's own investigation they can just follow the IBF ruling.

Also, one very underrated concept is always making the toughest play. This is hard to quantify since if you just look at deep finesse or w/e, plays are green or red. But when I think of Helgemo and Meck for instance, I feel that whatever I'm rooting for them to not play they seem to play like always. Sometimes it's like ok if they don't play this I can claim but if they play this it's a little tricky the entries are messed up, I have to think or guess or blah blah. I *can* still make it but it requires work now. These guys are always doing that, making you earn it and making you work for it It is natural that if you do this all the time, your opponents make some mistakes, because they were given an opportunity to do so. I would say I get far more cardplay hands wrong against tier 1 players than against say a club player. That does not make me better against club players, it is a direct result of my opponents always making the toughest play, but in analysis it is always that declarer messed up or should have gotten this right etc. The defenders never get the credit for consistently tough plays causing declarer to go wrong sometimes, but it is an inevitability. This will not go under "technical difference" but there is definitely a phrase that people use to describe a player, "soft" or "tough" (even about very good players). The tier 1 guys are all tough.

If you put 4 me's against 4 meckwells and we had a 1000 board team game I would never win or almost never win. If you put 4 mes against 4 meckwells and we played a 7 board swiss match I think I would win like 45 % of the time there was a decisive result. That probably doesnt shed any light on your question lol, but it's hard for me to answer. In all sports/mind games the top few are much better than the next group. How often would Nadal beat like #20 in the world, probably almost always? How often would Magnus Carlsen lose to #20 in the world in chess, probably rarely. To try and answer there are usually tiers of players. I am not in the top tier (which is quite small but they are definitely quite a bit better than the next tier). I think I am in the much larger second tier (sorry I am not trying to sound arrogant or w/e, should not rate myself it is a bad look but you asked so trying to give my honest opinion) which is much better than the much much larger third tier. Just my opinion and obviously I am biased but Meck, Helgemo, Levin, Hampson etc are much better players than me. It is not really about differences in technical skill, it is how often you play badly or make a mistake, ie consistency. I think Meck is a good example, he is probably worse technically as a card player than someone like RHM or Frances Hinden who post here. But playing bridge is not like posting on a forum, there is a time limit, there is pressure, there are other factors, etc etc. Meck just makes very few mistakes, and almost no hand where RHM would know the math or whatever to gain a few percent ever comes up, they are very rare hands and you aren't giving up much on those. So yeah I don't think its like well Meck knows this play and I don't. I think it's like, over a 120 board match, meck will have fewer brain lapses than me or times where you just miss something (we are all human) that you would never miss if given a hand on paper. Look at the general results. The top teams even when they don't win go deep very very often. I have some good results and can beat anyone on a good day but it is not even close compared to say Nickell, Monaco, Lavazza, etc how they are almost always going deep and doing well. Over 60 or 120 board matches, it is very hard to luck into a long string of wins. The top few teams have an inordinate amount of deep finishes and wins. Meck has like 55 national wins. That is incredible. A lot of other people who you think of as very successful are not even close to that. I'm not trying to call anyone out but you can go to the ACBL website and look up national wins and seconds. Look up people who I would obviously consider tier 1 compared to other people who are not but are considered very good, top players. The results speak for themselves, it is really a huge difference over a long match. I think my new team is very good. But that is largely because of how good I think greco-hampson are (def tier 1) and how good our client pair is (diamond-platnick won the blue ribbons, we basically always have a much better client pair than the other team which is a big advantage). I hope I can pull my weight and improve, because if my partnership is a tier 1 level we should definitely have results like the other very best teams. We will see! I do not think I'm there yet and think the best players in the world are much better than me but I think I can get there. That is kind of what I meant by "fringe top pro." Ofc if everyone starts cheating then bridge is a joke and it doesnt even matter if I get there. If that answer didn't answer your question well then feel free to ask for more. I am not going to talk about anyone else though for obv reasons (unless I say they are tier 1 haha).

I mean Boye leaked to Norweigan press (in the same article where he said he is hiding out in a secret house after talking to police) that pulling the sweater means... I assume he has more than one hand to prove that.

The hands themselves are not being used as evidence of cheating AFAIK. His play was normal. Just like the hand where he led a heart from Kxx was pretty normal (Boye made the same lead himself). I dont find it normal to peek at my opponents hand while going to the bathroom and then to come back and do all this weird left arm stuff while you know your left hand opponent has the SQ. But thats just me. There are lots of youtube videos of them, how many other times do you see those mannerisms (left elbow on the table, then left hand scratching your ear, then left indext finger on your mouth while your left elbow remains visible to the other side of the screen)?

I made a comment to someone about this. I think it shows how powerful the desire to not be rude is. Yes I know some will say it was rude of Lotan to ask to see and against the rules blah blah blah but this is very common practice in these kind of events with screens, it is so ***** slow and it gives the dummy a sweat. I believe the racecars did this too and that was the hand they were caught on. Anyways, if Meck asked to see my hand as dummy in a slam of course I would insta say yes, it is "standard practice." I'm sure Louk knew but he still showed him, as rightly or wrongly based on the etiquette of these things saying no would be a clear sign that he thought they cheated. Lotan is very charismatic and you can see him laughing with him and whispering to him before the lead, THEN he asks to see louks hand. It is very powerful that he said yes. Sorry to be an armchair sociologist lol but I found that really interesting. A lot of being a bridge pro is like being a politician, people liking you who might then recommend you for a job etc etc. I can see why he said yes even though it seems completely insane, much like a lot of psychological phenomenons.

If trumps are 3-2 you are basically* cold. In 6S you would worry about how to handle 4-1 trumps while still always making on 3-2 spades. It matters a lot what the lead is, they are basically endplayed at trick 1. *If clubs are 5-1 with 5 on your right you might be in some trouble but they will often lead their stiff club in that case

As far as video evidence I think hand 3 is extremely damning, peeking at someones hand without asking and then reapeatedly moving your left hand when the guy you peeked at had the Q is pretty lol. Hands 1 and 2 need more evidence of such behavior to make a pattern, which I am sure he has. On their own they are nothing. But hand 1 is the most amazing when you combine how ridiculous the play is (oh right Ron had a read) with the fact that Lotan looked at his opponents hand, with everything else. But again the sweater thing is not a pattern until more evidence is provided, which I'm sure it will be.

Mike, hand 2 is water bottle imo. The 1 and a half minute tank was an act. lol @ tanking 1 and a half minutes on a 2N 3N lead when you are one of the fastest players in the world. But yeah I think on bridgewinners someone said Boye himself led a heart. Don't think the action itself is that fishy.

For those who doubt his methods, the IBF is holding a special committee to address this (and also to review their processes that allowed this to happen), the ACBL is now going to have a special committee and enlist the help of "experts" and hopefully make that a permanent thing going forward, the top players know that we are also responsible for allowing it to get this far and will know how to organize and handle this more effectively going forward if the governing bodies wont (I mean he got the nuts on them in 2 weeks using a lot of youtube and vugraph archives lol)... This was actually brilliant. I never would have thought of this but I am coming around to cherdanos view that he is amazingly smart.

Yep, Boye said in his norweigan interview that the sweater = problem in trumps

In shocking news I looked up the hand and it was fishers left hand opponent who had the queen fwiw.