PaulSK

To manudude03 and shevek: Alas, the file is not there. I was able to carry out (both of) your suggestions, but BBO does not seem to have saved the hands. Thanks for the effort, though.

My partner and I bid some hands on BBO last night. I want to look at the records and work out some things, but I can't find them. The HAND RECORDS link does not find them -- understandable, since we didn't actually play them. Is there any way?

Good. Thank you for this info. I had the suspicion that I was not the first to raise this issue. I'll send any further ideas to that thread.

I recently ‘lost’ one of my partners. He is still living, but was forced to move away and we can’t play together. His eyesight is failing and he can’t see the cards well enough to continue. We accommodated him at the table – no bidding boxes, and we would call our cards as we played them – but he told me it was just getting too difficult. Can BBO be modified to help people like him? Certainly the program can be modified to ‘speak’; it already makes noises. It could also: 1. Announce the conditions. "Board 749, neither side vul, West dealer. You are South" 2. Read off the cards in your hand. "You have: Spades, King, ten, …." 3. Say the bids as they are made. 4. Announce the dummy when it appears. "Dummy has: Spades, Ace, Jack,……" 5. Say the cards as they are played. "West plays the ten of diamonds." I think that part would be very easy. Now we need some rudimentary speech-recognition software grafted onto it. All you need to recognize from a player is: 1. A bid. 2. A card played. 3. "Review" 4. "Dummy" -- request a restatement of dummy's (remaining) cards. 5. "My hand" -- request a restatement of my (remaining) cards. And a few more, I suppose. We would have to find a way to handle insufficient or illegal bids, revokes, illegal plays (you don't have that card), explanations of bids (and requests for them), and some others that I haven't thought of yet. Is anything like this feasible? I can think of one potential BBO member who would certainly benefit.

It's time. Hawaii has been over for 2 weeks now and you can turn your attention back to serious matters, such as Kibitzing at Tournaments. I can offer some suggestions. 1. The 10-minute delay might solve some problems. But your programming staff might walk out in a huff over this. 2. Perhaps a "Trusted Kibitzer" category could be established. 3. Kibitzing a player could be allowed subject to these restrictions: A. The player kibitzed must give consent. B. The player and kibitzer must be established as mutual 'friends'. C. The kibitzer is limited to watching that one player and seeing only what he sees. (That is along the lines of the usual f2f ethic of kibitzing -- you're supposed to watch one hand.) [One little query -- is there a comprehensive dictionary of 'online-bridge-ese'? It took me some time to figure out that f2f was an abbreviation for 'face-to-face' bridge.]

First: 1. His name was Schapiro. 2. That's 'perennial'. 3. No 'intimation' is necessary for anyone who has read both books -- by Reese and by Truscott. The evidence was devastating.

First, many thanks to all the members who responded to my post. I am impressed with both the quantity and quality of the responses -- all were considered and thoughtful. Here is my riposte, er.. I mean re-post. To Nickf, who was first to respond, perhaps because being in Australia, he was the only one awake at the time -- what are "Sheep stations"? Are these very expensive or are they very cheap? But mostly to Fred: Thank you for your extended discussion of the circumstances leading up to this decision. That was exactly what I was requesting. About some of your points (and some made by others): 1. It is certainly true that if someone is found out, he could always rejoin under another name. He could also change his email address and other information, but if he wants the masterpoints, how does he change his ACBL number? If you simply advise him that no further masterpoints will be awarded by BBO to ACBL number 1234567, one incentive is gone. 2. An attempt to stop kibitzing by 'enemies' of some sort is subject to the same problem - it is possible to reregister under another name. But how about turning that around? Since I know I am not one of the cheaters, I would not object to a rule that requires me to ask permission to kibitz tournaments, and having been granted it, may only kibitz those I have listed as friends. So if those friends start making brilliant plays (believe me, that is not likely) you won't have far to look for the 'wire'. This would take some coding, I am sure, but (see next) 3. I offer this 'contract': For my part, I will recognize this takes time to figure out, and I won't pester BBO about this. For your part, you won't put it on the back burner. [You have my permission to skip town this month for the Hawaii Nationals.] 4. You are absolutely right about the 'collusion' issue. I have always wondered, when cheating scandals arose, how one bridge player managed to get another to cheat with him. I believe Reese mentioned this issue in his book about the 1965 affair, but I am away from home and don't have access to it. (Maybe Truscott said it.) A personal note about the R-S affair. In 1964 the World Olympiad was in NY and I watched R-S play. I sat right behind Reese. DAMN! IF I ONLY KNEW!

I much prefer playing the tournaments to just playing 'at a table'. It's much easier to have the system get opponents for me and there's never a problem of someone deciding to leave 'the table'. But I often have to log on after a tournament has started, and then I like to watch a friend (and nag him when he blows a hand). No more. All kibitzing is disallowed at ACBL tournaments, says ACBL_16. He told me there was 'too much' cheating. He had to stop talking to me after one or two exchanges (for which I do not criticize him -- he was running a 50-table game and had plenty to keep him busy) but I think it merits more discussion and perhaps a report. What cheating did BBO find? How could they tell? I knew all along that cheating could happen in this environment; you don't see the players and have no control over any 'extracurricular' conversation. Perhaps the problem was the awarding of masterpoints. It seems that the scale of awards was high enough to provide a temptation, in which case it should be lowered. Any clarification? Ideas?