Cheats on BBO

[Wayne_LV]

   

[bid_em_up]

I must be missing something.  How does this:

 

But i find it amusing that you think dummy seeing the partners hand is the most common form of cheating.

Dummy not being able to see partners hand, which I believe you have been advocating all along Wayne......equal this:

 

Seeing opponent's hands provides the most readily accessible form of information that can be illegally used in the play of a bridge hand.

??

 

If you're advocating dummy not being able to see opponents hands, well, currently each person has that option available to them. Maybe the table host should be able to set it for his table as well. I, for one, dont see a reason for that option not to be available to the table host, and would support a suggestion such as this.

 

If you are actually advocating that dummy not being able to see partners hand.....I think most of us are going to feel that will not accomplish much to alleviate cheating, and it would be a major deterrent to others enjoyment of the game.

I never, in any of my posts, have suggested not letting dummy see partner's hand. I have, however, said several times that not allowing dummy to see the OPPONENT'S hands would IMHO stop most of the CASUAL cheating.

 

This is sooo frustrating. You are quoting a misquote to make a point.

Yes, it is frustrating.

 

I dont know if it was a misquote or not.....

 

And I wasnt attempting to "make a point", but instead only trying to find out what you were actually wanting to accomplish.

 

And Wayne, really, please stop acting like the rest of us are so dumb that we do not understand how scores are calculated and that results at other tables affect scores as well. It tends to piss people off.

[Al_U_Card]

To adroitly misquote Johnny Bell and the Drells..... :D

 

"lighten up, you've got to lighten up"... :D

[csdenmark]

Huh?

 

Sorry but I do not understand what you are saying I am advocating?

 

As far as the rules you copied and posted:

 

I think there have been some changes mades since these rules were written.

 

ACBL Masters points are now as stake in ACBL tournaments

 

Money is at stake in BBO money games. Wonder why money games can only be played with GiB as a partner?

 

And I would contend that pride has ALWAYS been at stake. Pride in trying to play the game as well as you can possibly play.

 

And what is the reference to obligation to obey the rules?

 

To the best of my knowledge I have not violated any rules.  Unless, of course, expressing an opinion is a violation of rules????

The problem is most people are playing on BBO for recreational purposes. They try to take advantage from tools best possible and accept with ease where there might be some problems. No restrictions to their freedom of how to behave, as long as it is accordance with ordinary good manners, to be accepted.

 

The part of the rules I have have uploaded are those you find on BBO today. I understand from your message that those rules are new to you!

[Wayne_LV]

   

[bid_em_up]

And Wayne, really, please stop acting like the rest of us are so dumb that we do not understand how scores are calculated and that results at other tables affect scores as well.  It tends to piss people off.

 

Where will it end?

 

I agreed with you and still pissed you off?

 

I realize that some of you must know how scores are derived but the comments made really don't seem to reflect that knowledge.

 

Wayne, really.....please read and understand. I did not say I was pissed off, I said that talking to people like they are dummies tends to piss people off. But you, evidently unknowingly, have a way with written words that you dont even notice. The only alternative to that is you are deliberately being inflammatory.

 

I would suspect that MOST (if not all) of us know how scores are derived. Not many of us learned this game yesterday and telling us over and over and over that "you dummies dont even understand how scores are calculated" (my generalization of your words and how they come across when read). Implying this, tends to instantly make people combative (or pissed off) towards you.

 

Take it for what its worth.

[hrothgar]

Where will it end?

 

I agreed with you and still pissed you off?

 

I realize that some of you must know how scores are derived but the comments made really don't seem to reflect that knowledge.

Let me try an analogy:

 

Suppose that you showed up and my house, looked at some of my plants, and decided that they needed watering. So, you helpfully pulled out your Johnson and took a piss on my Christmas cactus. I'd probably get upset even though you were trying to do the right thing.

 

There is a big difference between what you do and how you do it.

 

I readily admit, I'm probably the last person to be lecturing anyone about forum etiquette. I'm an arrogant SOB and probably won't ever change. However, if you're gonna act this way, do so with a bit of style. Trying to combine "I know best" with "Martyr complex / why doesn't anyone love me" just doesn't work.

[Walddk]

I will open myself wide open yet again, but I think there is just as much skill involved in rubber bridge and total points as the farce of duplicate bridge simulated online. Tournaments are the exception I admit.

 

<snip>

 

If I could find a few really good players that would come down off their pedestals long enough to play some real bridge, I would never play duplicate.

The man has lost his senses completely; please bear with him. I am regarded as a pretty good player, and no one has ever accused me of resting on some pedestal. Yet I can only find one (nice) word for your views:

 

Rubbish!

 

I am perfectly happy to be playing in the Main Bridge Club.

 

Roland

[Free]

I get a real insight into bridge player's mentality everytime I ever post to one of these threads.

 

I mentioned a program to flag potential cheaters and some of you go off into how impossible such a program would be to program. Not true... all would be needed would be to periodically check the average scores for players and look for only 3 things. 1. Is the average per board > 1 IMP or MP averages > 58% (pick a number) AND 2. does the player play with the same partner over 80% (again pick a number) of the boards. If the answer to all 3 of those is yes and 3. the player has played over 1000 boards in the past month, I guarantee you that player is cheating in some fashion.

Well, lets test your hypothesis with my name:

1. IMP average is +1.10, and usually it's positive.

2. I've played a lot with "downagain", who is sometimes a f2f partner but mostly online (because we live pretty far away from each other). I'm not going to count the exact percentage ;)

3. 174 boards in the last month. Well guess what, we both had lots of work to do, but I'm sure we could reach 1000 boards if we had enough time.

 

So suppose with a better time schedule, I would play 1000 boards with "downagain", would probably score +1.10 again, and I would be considered a cheater. I know for sure that I don't cheat, I guess most bridgebase forum people and online friends know (or are pretty sure) that I don't cheat, so these rules don't work. Rules for accusing people should work ALL the time, there's no room for mistake imo.

 

Ok, so what if we change the rules a bit?

1. IMP average +1.50? +2.0? More? Suppose we play more against GIB's. We average about 30 imps on 15 boards online against GIB's. Perhaps these robots just make assumptions on our bidding, while we give other meanings to the auction. So what, we still win too much don't we?

2. Lets say I'm practicing with a f2f partner for a big tournament and we play exclusively with each other. Whatever percentage you mention, it will not be enough...

3. take 10000 boards? Well, if you can find someone with the time to play 333 boards per day, good luck! 1000 boards already is a lot for most people, so how many cheaters will you catch anyway? All cheaters who play 999 boards a month will not be caught. So should you take a lower limit? 100? Damn then I should be (according to the rules) a cheater.

 

We can take even more rules into account, but there will always be a percentage of people who will be falsely accused, and you'll limit your search for potential cheaters to a very small percentage of the entire community. You can't make this process automatic because it would fail too many times, and it doesn't even work for 99% of the online players...

[csdenmark]

Wayne - the most frequent way of cheating is using undisclosed methods(Gigolo bridge). Approx. 98% of players are guilty of that - and most of them dont know and dont care.

 

Most salvators have a difficult life on earth - but they need to adapt.

 

Read 'Rules for these sites' and apply to those. Your agenda is not mine and it looks like there are few in this Forum which share your agenda.

 

Please dont be mistaken - the only real serious of tournaments is the word itself. A few organizers incl. table hosts have higher aspirations. We are a small minority which probably will be able to yell as long as we like. Nobody really cares and maybe all best served in that way.

[the saint]

I KNOW there are players that have averages of over 1 IMP per board for over 1000 boards because I have seen the records for some (long before I posted to this thread).

 

I still think this is a extremely difficult (but not impossible) thing to do without 1 of 3 things occuring:

 

1. Psychic powers - maybe they really do exist?

2. Divine intervention - I would define that as anything occurring with odds greater than 1 in a million. Others may define it as extremely good luck.

3. Cheating

This is nonsense. There is an incredibly wide standard of play on BBO. Give me someone who I have some kind of understanding with as a partner and put me against 2 random pickups and I will go at +3IMPs per board in the main club - and I suggest there are a lot of reasonably practiced high-standard pairs who could easily do the same. To suggest +1IMP per board is cheating is ludicrous. Any two players on BBO are far from equal. My average may not be +1IMP per board over time however, because I don't spend my time playing in bunny bash mode but generally playing with friends and coaching juniors.

 

Once again, people are looking for things where they simply don't exist. If you concentrated on your own game you would see more benefits than worrying about others!

 

Alan

[keylime]

Agreed.

 

With Larry and I with our comedy of errors at the beginning, we're pegging almost +1.4 imps/board and generally for the monthly spread it's 0.56. Surely I'm not fudging.

[matmat]

So why not? Well I tell you why I don't. It seems that after every beginning bridge player learns Stayman they think the only form of bridge worth playing is Duplicate. It is hard to get a total points game with 4 players that even play Stayman. If I could find a few really good players that would come down off their pedestals long enough to play some real bridge, I would never play duplicate.

because total points is such a fair game?

as a former poker simulator (or whatever the job title is) do you have any idea how many hands you'd have to play with the same partner against the same pair to even get a feel for relative ability? The reason duplicate is so much popular is because it is so much fairer than the rubber game (or chicago, or whatever).

 

And, are you insinuating that we do not play "real" bridge?

[Wayne_LV]

   

[pigpenz]

whats interesting about watching the vugraph championships is that there are so many hands where the results can be either way.....and the players just keep going on their merry way....they probably realize more than we do that it is just bridge ;)

[hrothgar]

>I am not sure how the practice of scoring pairs events by IMP ever got started

>since IMP scoring was originally devised for team events. MP scoring seems to

>be a better way of scoring pairs events and IMP for team events.

 

Matchpoint, IMP, and BAM scoring differ significantly from one another. Consequently, people employ different strategies for each of these scoring methods. I suspect that IMP pairs events originally arose because some players wanted a pairs format that rewarded successfully employing a teams type strategy.

 

I think that the widespread popularity of IMPs pairs events is related to the relatively high role that luck plays in these types of events. As I understand matters, there is a relative consensus that BAM events are the purest test of skill while IMP pairs involve the most luck. In the New York area, BAM events almost disappeared from the schedule because the same small number of teams dominated the standings year in and year out.

 

There are a number of par events where scores are assigned based on some kind of external standard. Historically, the par has been determined by taking hand records from old tournaments. In theory, par could be determined using a set of computers. Of course, the problem with par scoring is that relatively few people are ever happy with the external standard. Case in point: Bidding methods have changed dramatically over time. Its questionable whether a set of hand records from the 1982 Blue Ribbons Pairs is necessarily a valid par for a contest that takes place in 2007. In a similar vein, if you want to use a pair of GIBs to determine the pair, you need to be damn sure that the GIBs are going to behave sanely on a given hand. Much as I might slander the Main Bridge Club, I have more faith in it than I do in GIB.

 

There is a good writeup regarding the relative benefits of different types of cross IMP scoring at http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/butler.htm

[jikl]

Can we all just admit this is a troll-fest and we are all being sucked in?

 

He has said last post many time already but re-ignites the fire when it is getting low. Let him speak to himself for a while. Then this thread with the crap in it will end.

 

Sean

[glen]

So you are claiming that a writer of poker software might be bluffing?

[jikl]

Not exactly, I am claiming he is a %*^%^&$&^. ;)

 

Sean

[fred]

QUOTE 

12.  I think you will not because you cannot.

 

Bad choice of words, I should have said: I think you will not because you are probably not allowed to.

As Wayne correctly stated later in the post that I quoted, he and I have indeed enjoyed a long, cordial, and constructive e-mail relationship over the years. Most of these e-mail exchanges began with Wayne offering me a suggestion as to how we might improve our software or service. Some of the time I have agreed with him and some of his suggestions are now part of BBO. In cases where I have disagreed with Wayne's suggestions, I explained my reasoning and he was willing to accept my judgment even when I was unable to convince him that I was right.

 

For the record, Wayne always struck me as being a really good guy (and he is definitely a smart guy) so it disturbed me to see what at first appeared to be a lot of other good guys ganging up on him in this thread.

 

That being said, I was not planning on getting involved, but I am doing so now for 2 reasons:

 

1) Wayne's references to me in his most recent post suggested that he was going to e-mail me to find out what I thought about all of this. I thought that if I was going to express my opinions, it was likely that other people would want to know as well.

 

2) Wayne's statement that I quoted above struck a nerve.

 

I will address reason 2) first. This bothered me because I thought it was a not very subtle suggestion that Inquiry (and by extension the other yellows) was on some kind of leash controlled by BBO management.

 

Nothing could be further from the truth. We give new yellows a few simple guidelines about what constitutes appropriate behavior by a yellow. These guidelines are actually so simple and obvious that there is probably no need to state them - things like "don't initiate chat with an invisible person unless you have a very good reason for doing so".

 

The reason we do not feel the need to dictate policy to yellows is because we are very careful in selecting new yellows. We only allow people to become yellows if we are completely confident in their judgment and integrity. In short, we will not allow a person to become a yellow if we are worried that we will have to babysit them.

 

This policy has worked well for us. There have been very few cases in which we have had to tell a yellow "please do not do that in the future", almost all of these cases have been very minor in nature, and in almost all cases the yellow in question has never repeated the questionable behavior that he/she was asked to stop.

 

Another reason this policy works is because I believe that the yellows appreciate the respect we have for their judgment and that this makes it easier for them to do their jobs and to make the many difficult decisions they face with confidence.

 

The yellows we have are a remarkable group of people and I am normally hesitant to single out any particular yellow for going above and beyond the call of duty. However, if any yellow deserves to be singled out in this way it is Inquiry. Forums regulars already know about the massive number of helpful posts that Inquiry makes, but you probably do not know that much about what Inquiry does "behind the scenes". Although other yellows (including me) sometimes get involved in cheating investigations, Inquiry spends far more time helping to keep BBO clean than anyone.

 

In this capacity Inquiry has pioneered techniques for detecting cheating, spends countless hours compiling and analyzing hands that suggest that a suspected cheater is actually cheating (or just as important is not cheating), and consistently exhibits incredible judgment and integrity. Even if I was willing to get involved in telling yellows what they were “allowed to do”, I would not even think of issuing orders to Inquiry as far as cheating investigations are concerned – he probably knows more about cheating in online bridge than anyone in the world. He certainly has a lot more expertise and experience in this area than I do.

 

I would hope that the same respect that BBO management has for our yellows would be felt by our members. That is why it bothers me when people suggest that the yellows are nothing more than people who follow the orders of Uday and me. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the very suggestion involves a contradiction – any yellow who needs to be told what he is allowed to do either would not have been made a yellow in the first place or would not have remained a yellow for long.

 

As for Wayne’s suggestions as to how we might reduce cheating (by allowing the dummy to see only his partner’s hand for example), it is hard to disagree with him that these measures could only make incidents of cheating fewer and further between.

 

However, I do not think that this implies that we should implement these suggestions. As I have said before, our general policy is to not remove functionality in an (ultimately futile) attempt to reduce cheating if we believe that such functionality will significantly and adversely impact that BBO experience for people who do not cheat.

 

My opinion is that allowing dummy to see only declarer’s hand will do just that. It will make being dummy a lot less enjoyable for a lot of our members. Allowing kibitzers to see only one hand will have the same effect. Blocking kibitzers who come from the same IP address as any of the players will not be fair to the honest people who do this and would not be effective for a variety of reasons.

 

BBO members who are concerned about such forms of cheating already have plenty of options (playing only with trusted friends, playing only at tables or tournaments in which kibitzing is not allowed, playing in games with GIBs). If they don’t like any of these options, all I can suggest is that they accept the fact that they might get cheated on occasion, don’t let this ruin their day, and report suspicious behavior to our abuse department. The bottom line is that, as long as players know who their partners are, cheating will always be a part of online bridge and preventing people from knowing who their partners are would ruin the game for almost everyone. Of course we will continue to try to get rid of people who cheat and to include features in the software to help people avoid the cheaters, but we are not going to try to win this unwinnable battle by implementing features and policies that will make BBO less enjoyable for our honest members.

 

No doubt some of you are thinking “your ACBL policies contradict what you just said”. That is true, but there is a difference: we have a responsibility to the ACBL to do whatever we can to prevent cheating in the games in which ACBL masterpoints are at stake. It is necessary that this responsibility takes priority over the enjoyment of our members because ignoring this responsibility will mean the end of ACBL games on BBO.

 

My main impressions from reading this thread have been:

 

1) That my friend Wayne was perhaps too sensitive to the criticism that his suggestions received

2) That at least some of this was justified as the tone of some of this criticism was not exactly nice and because I did get a sense that people were “ganging up” against Wayne

 

After a while the whole thing because a vicious circle with each post from Wayne and his critics adding fuel to the fire without really furthering the discussion. I think it is time for everyone to take a break.

 

I do hope that all of you will be able to get over this because, as I said near the start of this post, I know Wayne is very bright and I am sure he has the potential to be an excellent contributor to BBO forums. I personally think it would be a shame if Wayne stopped posting here. If he does continue to post, I think it would be a shame if his future posts were ignored or dismissed as a consequence of what has happened in this thread.

 

One more thing Wayne (and everyone): please stop this “Fred himself” stuff! Yes I have won more bridge trophies than most and yes I have been involved in writing the BBO software, but that does not make me a deity. I do not want to be treated as such. It is nice that people seem to admire me and respect my views, but I make plenty of stupid decisions (at the bridge table, in BBO design, and in some of the things I have written in forums) just like everyone else. Please treat me like everyone else. Just because I say something, that doesn’t mean it is right.

 

And a message for Claus (which I have said before): I find your references to “gigolo bridge” to be deeply offensive. While I admire your study of bidding theory and your dedication to having strong agreements with your regular partners, it is time that you realize that your views in this area place you in a tiny minority of bridge players. It is highly inappropriate to suggest that anyone who does not subscribe to your views in this area (ie just about everyone) is cheating.

 

I also happen to think you are completely wrong, but we can save that discussion for another day. In the mean time, I am sure we will continue to disagree, but I don’t think it is a lot to ask that you show a little more respect for people whose views in this area are different from your own. Even if you are right, calling 98% (your number) of BBO members cheaters because they don’t agree with your views, really has to stop.

 

Thanks to all of you for helping to making BBO forums such a stimulating and dynamic place. I hope and expect we will get more of the same in 2007!

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[pigpenz]

Blocking kibitzers who come from the same IP address as any of the players will not be fair to the honest people who do this and would not be effective for a variety of reasons.

So far what has happened in the ACBL games has been great but there are times when you play against couples that auctions seem to be manipulated. Now when we report to abuse@BBO we get a confirmation about authorization that what we sent is not spam :)

 

any way that it can be set up so on the forums we can post to abuse here, maybe a fourm where we can only see what we post and it then becomes invisible except to the yellows or whatever is in charge here?

 

My two biggest questions have come against couples on board 12 twelve of tournies where kibbing is opened up to the general in the last round where the bidding has appeared to be manipulated. coincidence or luck.

 

(hand deleted by inquiry)....

Edited December 27, 2006 by inquiry

[glen]

If they were cheating on this board, it would seem to be quite the effort - hey, we have a 6-4 fit - let's pass on the opening - okay, now let's not overcall but double instead, which is takeout for us (?), and then if they give us another chance the doubler (only) will finally run to our 6-4 fit, and just maybe the opponents will double this, even though both opponents are short in our suit? Quite the planners.

 

I would be adding a note to the player, but it would not involve 'cheating' in any form, but just that their 'lead directional' doubles are sometimes takeout, and we should be careful to alert/self-explain our 2♦ responses to 2♣ as artificial.

 

Meanwhile: Who knew you could cheat at chess?

[hotShot]

2.not one person pre empted which suprised me

There are people who think that a 4card (major) side suit should keep you from preempting.

Listening to the 2♣ opening of LHO, creates a "wish i had bid my preempt" feeling followed by some irrational bidding.

Did this move make them win?

I doubt that very much. This is a "last board top or flop" action to compensate bad scores made before.

I doubt that cheating is involved, i think it's inability to do better.

[csdenmark]

And a message for Claus (which I have said before): I find your references to “gigolo bridge” to be deeply offensive. While I admire your study of bidding theory and your dedication to having strong agreements with your regular partners, it is time that you realize that your views in this area place you in a tiny minority of bridge players. It is highly inappropriate to suggest that anyone who does not subscribe to your views in this area (ie just about everyone) is cheating.

 

I also happen to think you are completely wrong, but we can save that discussion for another day. In the mean time, I am sure we will continue to disagree, but I don’t think it is a lot to ask that you show a little more respect for people whose views in this area are different from your own. Even if you are right, calling 98% (your number) of BBO members cheaters because they don’t agree with your views, really has to stop.

Fred even I agree my expressions are far from main stream I dont think anybody is right feeling offended. I think I express common knowledge. I normally voice that in threads where somebody claim to be fooled of mis-information or missing alerts. I advocate it is no special case but only a variation of a general problem popping up very frequently. Therefore it must be dealt with using general methods. Let's call it 'the computer way'.

 

I think you agree to the nature of the problem as I think most interested agree to the nature of the problem. I think we disagree to the assessment of the graveness of the problem and we therefore also disagree to the cure of the problem. It is an uphill struggle and I know quite well I am a part of a small minority - no problem with that.

 

I mostly raise voice to:

• Controversial views on general topics
  
• Any view on controversial topics
  

My intensions raising my voice to the post you refer to was nothing than this simple to transform the old wisdom sentence There is little point in crossing the river looking for water

[helene_t]

Wayne - the most frequent way of cheating is using undisclosed methods(Gigolo bridge). Approx. 98% of players are guilty of that - and most of them dont know and dont care.

If I understand this correctly, you're refering to pairs who bid and signal on the basis of unformalized mutual understanding rather than formalized agreements. Pairs who play symmetric relays and similar formalized methods can (and often will) provide near-100% disclosure. Pairs who use less formalized methods can't do that, in particular with respect to negative inference and mixed strategies.

 

We had (at the Dutch stepbrigde.nl/forum) a discussion about this problem, initiated by a case from a high-level Dutch pairs tourney in which one player (playing Ace-asks-attitude) objected to the agreement that "we play either count, attitude or suit pref depending on what we think partner is most interested in". He said that pairs playing non-formalized carding methods are not providing full disclosure.

 

I don't think it's fair to call this "cheating" except in the highly hypothetical case when a pair deliberatly chooses non-formalized agreements in order to lessen the disclosure obligation. It's certainly not against the rules and I don't think it's against good sportsmanship if only because 98% (your number) of all players have no alternative.

 

Another thing is that I don't think the problem (if it is a problem at all) is very prevalent on BBO. Most partnerships just have the agreement to play "Sayc" (who knows what that means ....) and don't have enough partnership history to have much knowledge of each other's style. So partner is equally uninformed as are opps.