Cheats on BBO

[pbleighton]

"Perhaps he has, if you say it is true, it must be true."

 

Very nice. A excellent example of your powers of persuasion, and your skill with the English language.

 

"But currently he is averaging about .31 IMP per board on BBO. While that is an enviable win rate and I am green with jealosy, it is a tad short of 1 IMP per board."

 

Justin (and I) used the past tense. Please pay attention to the posts you are attempting to respond to.

 

Let me explain something to you. There are many levels of bridge ability. You obviously think of yourself as a good player, and compared to the the average duplicate player, you may well be. You may be the stud of your local club.

 

World-class players, on the other hand, are further away in ability from strong club players than the strong club players are from the club duffers. You apparently don't realize this. I'm guessing it's because you like to think of yourself as a near-champion player, and don't want to admit to yourself that you are not.

 

Of course, if I am wrong, you may list your national and international victories and top 3 finishes, and I will stand corrected.

 

Another issue: your age. Looking at your profile, I was truly shocked to find that you are 64. From your posts, I was guessing that you were a socially maladjusted under 25 year old.

 

Obviously, I was wrong about you.

 

BTW, this isn't meant as a slap to our under-25 contingent of posters, who are generally quite well behaved. YOUR parents obviously brought you up right.

 

Peter

[uday]

Wayne seems to find himself on one side on the discussion with more than one person on the other, but lets be polite, pls. Feel free to edit out any insults that might have slipped out, we won't complain :)

[inquiry]

First, the post is correct. Jlall is two time-reigning World Junior Champion. See this website for details. Technically, over the last 1000 boards, justin is not averaging 1 imp per board. In fact, his current average over 4404 boards is 0.69. There is a reason for this, he plays a lot of team matches against evenly or closely evenly matched teams.

 

But let's deal with the statement that no one could average +1 imp over a 1000 boards without "help".

 

And I still believe an average win rate of over 1 IMP per board over 1000 hands is impossible without some form of help, be it cheating or psychic powers or devine intervention.

 

Here, I will show you data from OKBridge for the partnership of papi and snabu... In the one database for them I checked (bridgebrowser online has a papi database with all the hands he played on okbridge over several years). This partnership played thousands of hands, i stopped at 10323 hands and their average was +1.02 imp/board. I hope you are wise enough not to suggest this partnership was cheating.

 

I am leary of posting similar numbers for bbo members, since the implication you state is that to have those numbers they must be cheating. Also, it is hard to find partnerships with 1000 boards together, as i have to search multiple databases (BBO plays more hands in one month than okbridge does in a year, so each few months results in the creation of a new BrBR database for BBO data). I will however give you three names from the BBO.

 

SusieQ -- a very nice canadian and recent gold star, 1324 hands, average imps, 1.49. A lehmans of 51.37. (BTW, dank, susie's regular partner averaged 1.36).

 

luchi2004 -- an Argentine gold star who won the South American Open Championships, has played 4444 hands, averaging 1.15 imps, a lehmans in the mid 60's

 

winkle -- a forum poster here and nice guy from the Boston area I believe (and non-gold star), he has 2112 imp hands, averaging 1.01 imps.

 

I can assure you these players are not cheating. Now, obviously, as uday pointed out, cheaters pop up to the top of such list. The really high-and-mighty cheaters go much higher, and have averages in the 2 to 3 imps per board range. These people are easily caught and banned.

 

However, there are literrally 1000's of bbo users with averages above 1 imp that don't cheat (and many that did and are now banned). You simply can not look at myhands (or bridgebrowser) and average imps and decide guilt or innocence. You seem to continue to overlook the fact that some people self-select their opponents (friends, students, favorite victims). If I were to always play against some of my friends, i would average well above 1 imp/board, if I were to always play against others, i would average below 0 imps. This is EXCERBATED when playing in team games.

 

I've heard the argument that if "world class players" can't average 1 imp per board, how can crappy players do that if they are not cheating. The reason is simple. The world class players self-select to play against other excellent players (either in team matches or main room). The same thing happens. If a bunch of bad playeres play against each other, the better of the bad ones will have a high imp average.. imp scale shows relatively difference between the playing pairs. In the long run the better pair wins, and size of the win depends upon the difference in the relative ability. You keep thinking random opponents, and want to turn off some software features. People keep telling you that BBO is a social site and friends hang togehter and play together. This self-selection defeats your concept. There are beginner/intermediates who play in the BIL who average more than 1 imp because the people they play against are much weaker than they are.

[matmat]

BTW, this isn't meant as a slap to our under-25 contingent of posters, who are generally quite well behaved. YOUR parents obviously brought you up right.

 

Peter

yes it is!

 

not that i can claim to be under 25 anymore... but from all the mal-adjusted under former 25 year olds... bah!

 

I really don't get it why people take this game as seriously as they do.

[Guest Jlall]

But currently he is averaging about .31 IMP per board on BBO.

As someone stated I used past tense. I now don't play against unknown opps or opps I feel cannot be competitive. In team matches I almost always give myself the weakest teammates of the 4 pairs with a few exceptions. I also play with friends who are not that great which I used to not do. I also play almost only team games now with barometer as opposed to main bridge club (which I used to play exclusively). This leads to some swinging towards the end which increases the chances of winning the match but usually causes us to lose by more. This leads to a lower imp average.

 

I assure you that if I play with only my best say 3 partners against random people in the main bridge club for 1000 boards I will average over 1.5 imps a board. I would be willing to bet on this, so long as you feel like I would not cheat. Too bad the myhands records don't go back for several years, or you could see but I really don't have any reason to lie about imp average.

 

As far as flagging these kinds of partnerships with very high imp averages to a yellow or something, I think thats a good idea but I'm not sure how practical it would be for yellows to go through thousands of partnerships hand databases and try and analyze if they are cheating. Yellows are volunteers and their resources are typically spread thin already as far as I can tell.

[Wayne_LV]

   

[mike777]

hmmm I may be totally off here but is Ben saying that those players with plus one imps are significantly more likely to be cheating? Is there some significant...Rsquared here compared with cheaters under plus one imps?

 

If not ..please ignore this post...

 

btw is there some signifance level of plus imps to cheaters....

btw2 can ben tell us novices how to find our plus imps, or neg imps in my case?

[mike777]

"often observe such bidding by the wonderkinds of bridge and marvel at why they play the way they do when more straight foward approaches would work better?"

 

 

 

This seems like the ongoing forum debate of the Kokish...nee...may I say Justin ....style of responding......

 

I am willing to grant that even playing at the highest levels of bridge this is a topic for debate?

[mike777]

edited ..dup

[Wayne_LV]

   

[1eyedjack]

SusieQ -- a very nice canadian and recent gold star, 1324  hands, average imps, 1.49. A lehmans of 51.37. (BTW, dank, susie's regular partner averaged 1.36).

 

luchi2004 -- an Argentine gold star who won the South American Open Championships, has played 4444 hands, averaging 1.15 imps, a lehmans in the mid 60's

 

winkle -- a forum poster here and nice guy from the Boston area I believe (and non-gold star), he has 2112 imp hands, averaging 1.01 imps.

I unconcede.

 

This is typical of the half cocked responses that seem to be prevelant in the discussion of this topic.

 

All 3 of the players you mention COMBINED have played 122 boards on BBO since 11-27.

 

May I please have the name of some players that have currently on file in BBO MyHand records of over 1000 boards with an average exceeding 1 IMP per board?

 

Surely if there are 1000's of them, some would be more than proud to share that record with us and give us some insight on how they achieve such enviable win rates.

 

I am not saying they don't exist, but I have yet to see them.

Have you any particular reason for thinking that they would be cheating on BBO but not on OKB, or vice versa? Why would hands played on another site not be admissible evidence?

 

Why do you believe that only hands played since 27 November 2006 should be considered as admissible evidence? I am sure that Inquiry did not limit his research to that period.

[Wayne_LV]

   

[1eyedjack]

Incidentally, I second the motion that the table host or tourney host should have the OPTION of setting all tables within his domain to disallow dummy seeing opponents' hands during the course of play. You could even add an option to disallow his seeing declarer's hand during the course of play (there is, after all, a specific section in the international laws that prohibit dummy from leaving his seat to kibitz declarer - Law 43A2(b.) - Those laws were written before it became a practical possibility to kibitz declarer without leaving seat)

 

One of the great things about BBO is its democratic potential. The software already permits the banning of kibitzers at the discretion of the table host or tourney host, and some hosts (ie ACBL) have made a policy decision consistently to ban kibitzers. That leaves the members with a choice - to attend or not to attend events with such flags set. And that is how it should be. No need for God on high to decree that all tables be so set. If the measure is effective, and if players are willing to forego the benefits of kibitzing to honest players as a price worth paying, then such players will naturally gravitate to those events, while others can still gravitate to other tables, hopefully without a slur on their character.

 

The principle regarding the option of dummy to view other hands can be treated the same way. Empower the host to set it as he wishes. Empower the players to play there or elsewhere according to THEIR wishes.

[1eyedjack]

I just would like to see current hand records I can review for any player averaging over 1 IMP per board for over 1000 hands. A thorough review of the winning techniques of such a player would have to be a bridge education extraordinaire.

 

122 boards played by 3 players is not enough to draw very many conclusions or from which to learn a great deal.

Ok, you could do this as well as Inquiry or anyone else, but you would have to go out and buy BridgeBrowser to do it. MyHands does not go back that far. It is a separate gripe that I have with MyHands, but not I hasten to add for witchhunting purposes - just that I like my own records available a bit longer.

[mike777]

uggg.. just my late night guess...very late night...but....

1) mbc...most could care less

2) teamgames....either they play with most if not all friends.....semi friends?....or....they play with random 8..hard to cheat except with given pair..and even then...in short tg?

3) tourneys....no comment.

[Walddk]

And I see it coming now..."Wayne, you are not SMART enough to learn what they know ...... "  I guess the fact that I am still engaged in this juvinile discussion is proof that my IQ is not very high.

It will be higher the day you learn how to spell "juvenile".

 

Gaudeamus igitur

Juvenes dum sumus

Post jucundum juventutem

Post molestam senectutem

Nos habebit humus

 

Pereat tristitia

Pereant osores

Pereat diabolus

Quivis antiburschius

Atque irrisores

 

You will likely be able to google your way to a translation. Merry Christmas!

 

Roland

[1eyedjack]

Incidentally, I second the motion that the table host or tourney host should have the OPTION of setting all tables within his domain to disallow dummy seeing opponents' hands during the course of play. You could even add an option to disallow his seeing declarer's hand during the course of play (there is, after all, a specific section in the international laws that prohibit dummy from leaving his seat to kibitz declarer - Law 43A2(b.) - Those laws were written before it became a practical possibility to kibitz declarer without leaving seat)

My bad. Dummy cannot see oppo cards even now. Issue only relates to seeing declarer's hand.

 

Each player can personally set this on or off, but not at host override level.

[hrothgar]

After all the exchanges of smart remarks I am still left with the one main suggestion I started with:

 

DO NOT allow the dummy to see ops hands during the play.

 

I see no real downside to this change and the potential benefits seem to be pretty obvious.

The Romans had a famous saying: "De gustibus non est disputandum"

 

I don't understand why my mother persists in buying vanilla ice cream when chocolate is available. I've learned not to try to convince her of the error of her ways. It just doesn't lead to a fruitful discussion.

[hrothgar]

I unconcede.

 

This is typical of the half cocked responses that seem to be prevelant in the discussion of this topic.

 

All 3 of the players you mention COMBINED have played 122 boards on BBO since 11-27.

 

May I please have the name of some players that have currently on file in BBO MyHand records of over 1000 boards with an average exceeding 1 IMP per board?

 

Surely if there are 1000's of them, some would be more than proud to share that record with us and give us some insight on how they achieve such enviable win rates.

 

I am not saying they don't exist, but I have yet to see them.

Comment 1: If you are genuinely interest in looking at hand records to improve your game, you don't want to watch players who are averaging +1 IMP per board. As Justin notes, achieving this type of score almost as much about the calibre of one's opponents as it does about your own level of skill.

 

You'd probably learn a lot more about the game if you watch top experts playing other experts. You probably aren't going to see +1 IMPs a board if Cayne's team is playing against (insert world class opponents). Then again, the calibre of the bridge is a lot better.

 

Comment 2: The fact that you don't have access to data does not negate its existence. If you want to make a serious study of these sorts of things, invest in some real tools. BridgeBrowser is a great application with an extensive database of hand records.

 

Comment 3: I can't help noticing you making some clumsy comments about complex bidding methods. It almost looks as if you're trying to start a flame war...

[EricK]

I don't understand why my mother persists in buying vanilla ice cream when chocolate is available. I've learned not to try to convince her of the error of her ways. It just doesn't lead to a fruitful discussion.

For that you would need tutti frutti.

[Al_U_Card]

then start your own club, as was suggested above. Trying to "clean" up the MBC is pointless, firstly because you'll never catch all the cheats, secondly b/c the ones you do catch will figure out a way to come back and thirdly b/c it isn't the cheats that are spoiling the game.

Now theres an idea! :o We start an "honest" bridge club. :huh: Where all results are monitored and anyone who goes "beyond" certain parameters will be labelled a cheater? :( How about a "cheaters" club where cheating is encouraged? B)

 

Or how about all 4 hands are exposed and the players can just argue about how the hand should best be played? :)

[inquiry]

SusieQ -- a very nice canadian and recent gold star, 1324  hands, average imps, 1.49. A lehmans of 51.37. (BTW, dank, susie's regular partner averaged 1.36).

 

luchi2004 -- an Argentine gold star who won the South American Open Championships, has played 4444 hands, averaging 1.15 imps, a lehmans in the mid 60's

 

winkle -- a forum poster here and nice guy from the Boston area I believe (and non-gold star), he has 2112 imp hands, averaging 1.01 imps.

I unconcede.

 

This is typical of the half cocked responses that seem to be prevelant in the discussion of this topic.

 

All 3 of the players you mention COMBINED have played 122 boards on BBO since 11-27.

 

May I please have the name of some players that have currently on file in BBO MyHand records of over 1000 boards with an average exceeding 1 IMP per board?

 

Surely if there are 1000's of them, some would be more than proud to share that record with us and give us some insight on how they achieve such enviable win rates.

 

I am not saying they don't exist, but I have yet to see them.

No. I am not going to give you anymore names. There is two reasons for this, the first being, I don't know who has played 1000 hands in the current myhands database. I almost never use myhands as it is very crude by database standards. It serves one useful function.. to find all the recent hands played by a specific player. That is it... no search by partnerships, no search by contracts, no search by good results (or bad result), no search by contract, or auction, or opening lead, or vulnerability, or opponents, or well, anything but a single player name. And i am certainly not going to search a list of players with a +1 imp avergage and then type their names into myhands to see if they have 1000 hands listed there currently.

 

Second, I am not going to do it because, to be honest, I can see from the following quote that you still don't get it....

 

I just would like to see current hand records I can review for any player averaging over 1 IMP per board for over 1000 hands. A thorough review of the winning techniques of such a player would have to be a bridge education extraordinaire.

 

IF you wanted a bridge education extraordinaire, I would suggest you kibitz people with an average closer to zero than one. People like those who play in the nearly daily Cayne versus who ever matches. Or our forum friend jlall and the team games he plays in. Or look for any teamgame with five or more gold star players playing in it.

 

Or try this, if you are 1/3 as good a player as you believe you are, change your skill level to beginner and join the BIL. You should easily be able to average +1 imp/board before they figure out you are not a beginner and throw you out of that club. But that is the very point you seem to overlook, average imps won is a reflection of not only the skill of the player you want to kibitz but also the opponents they routinely face.

[bid_em_up]

Damn, and all this time, I thought it was "kat"

 

IF you wanted a bridge education extraordinaire, I would suggest you kibitz people with an average closer to zero than one. People like those who play in the nearly daily Cayne versus who ever matches. Or our forum friend jlall and the team games he plays in. Or look for any teamgame with five or more gold star players playing in it.

Ben,

 

Wayne and I have had this conversation before (see here). Mr. Statistician Extraordinaire

(remember he claims to have written the original World Series of Poker) cant seem to comprehend this one simple fact.

[Wayne_LV]

   

[sceptic]

It will be higher the day you learn how to spell "juvenile".

 

 

 

Roland do not associate IQ with ability to spell, I can assure you and prove my IQ is higher than 99% of the worlds population ( well Great Britians for definate, been a long time since I read any facts about Densa) and my spelling is very poor, IQ has no bearing on someones ability to be articulate and I am more than aware how stupid it would be to make a claim like that in here if I was not sure of my facts