BBO cheaters?

[ggwhiz]

I've just been accused of this for the second time in 3 days after an auction of

1♠ - 1nt - 3nt - dbl (3 notrump was a mis-click?) and I doubled on ♥972♥73♦K1053♣Q953 and doubled the 4♥ runout for 1100.

 

My partner and I play from the same location, in different rooms BUT will not consider cheating until the ACBL table fees are raised to 2 bucks.

 

What's the answer? I'm thinking it would be nice if we could register with BBO as playing from the same location and perhaps make our competitive record, including the 35% games available to all.

[uday]

The answer is:

 

In acbl games let the TD know what happened (or drop an email to acbl@bridgebase.com or support@bridgebase.com). In other games drop an email to abuse@bridgebase.com or support@bridgebase.com

 

We'll let the other side know they shouldn't say things like that, and why.

 

Uday

[JLOL]

Or stop cheating obv

[jonottawa]

You doubled the 4♠ runout, get your facts straight.

 

You seem to imply that your opponents somehow 'knew' that you were playing from the same location. That's not so unless they're hackers or you volunteered that information.

 

Your competitive record (at least for the past month) is already available to all. But the existence of a few 35% games isn't proof that cheating has never occurred (hey, it might even provide evidence of motive.)

 

Bottom line, have a thicker skin with respect to random internet folks and report people who throw the C word around.

[helene_t]

My partner and I play from the same location, in different rooms BUT will not consider cheating until the ACBL table fees are raised to 2 bucks.

Huh? How low does the interest rate on your saving have to go before you consider robbing the bank?

 

I don't get it.

[jdonn]

It's very honorable that you won't cheat until card fees reach the astronomical price of a tiny fraction of what they would be in live bridge.

[jonottawa]

My partner and I play from the same location, in different rooms BUT will not consider cheating until the ACBL table fees are raised to 2 bucks.

C'mon you two, this was obviously intended as a funny, though it missed the mark.

[Old York]

Many TDs are running large Indies with no kibs to try to avoid this problem

 

1. It cuts down on the usual methods of cheating

2. It cuts down on the frequency of accusations

 

I stopped allowing kibs in my Swiss Pairs and a few high-scoring regulars stopped playing. I let you draw your own conclusions

 

It is far too easy for regular pairs to cheat, or for one player to log into BBO using 2 or more identities. It is almost impossible to report these players because there cannot be enough evidence. I hope that security issues will be tightened up soon, multiple log-ins should be very easy to block which should stop players kibbing their own table (esp as zzzz1234)

 

Tony (Duke of York)

[glen]

Note that OP is a Diamond LM, his partner won a national event in 2007 (without him), and they are both super great bridge teachers. However since they don't have a "gold star" for their profiles, some are assuming they are just regular players, and that their good results are not due to their high skill levels combined with years of experience in serious bridge events - ACBL BBO tourneys being non-serious, of course.

[ggwhiz]

My problem is not so much to avoid the cheating that does go on, but how to declare and prove that you are honest despite playing with the ability to cheat.

 

I know some of the most honest citizens who play this way all the time.

[onoway]

If someone is bound and determined to see cheaters, they WILL see them, whether they are there or not, and there is little you can do about it. I think it would be unreasonable to demand that a pair cannot play from the same location. Most people are honest and it would be ridiculous imo to require someone leave their house and wander into the night looking for somewhere to hook into the internet just because their partner also wants to play bridge.

 

If over time people get to be KNOWN as cheaters, I would imagine they would have a hard time finding people to play with them, and they would find themselves unwelcome if not banned in tourneys. So if someone makes such an accusation, it is likely wise to follow up on it with abuse, to prevent unfair rumors growing wings, as well as to encourage people to develop manners.

[Codo]

I play frequently in the same room with my wife. Of course cheating this way is much easier then with the Skype connection I have with my regular partner. The messenger I need for the guys without skype is even worse.

 

But: As long as I want to cheat there is not much what can be done against it. And what can be done is done. F.E: BBO can chech pattern. All hands are recorded on the internet. Many tournements disallow kibs.

 

Anyway, we need to belive (I do) that 95 % of all players are honest.

 

And for the rest: When they cheat against me, they at least reach the perfect spot or have the perfect defence. This helps my game a lot, because I need to play as good as possible against them.

 

Actually, I prefer to play against someone who cheats to reach all slim games then against honest and clueless opponents who give me 1100 in each second game- but this may be an outside opinion.

[barmar]

There's not much that can be done about the accusations of cheating. And if the investigators see them playing from the same location, they' may be biased towards believing the accusation. So what ggwhiz is looking for is a way to let the investigators know, proactively, that this is going on. Presumably a true cheater wouldn't volunteer this information.

 

Actually, that assumption seems wrong. If BBO made it easy to volunteer this, cheaters would register themselves in order to deflect accusations. So it should probably be more secret -- after an investigation, if the accused cheaters are exonerated, they could be added to a list, and this list would be helpful in future investigations.

 

I'm not sure if this needs to be done in any formal way, though. It seems to me that during any cheating investigation, you would check the history of the players, and this would include the results of previous investigations. It would say there that they are known to play from the same IP, but we believe that they're not colluding.

[uday]

Whether a pair plays from the same location or not is just another datum that goes into an investigation. It doesnt bias us much in either direction. The historical results are what matter more than anything else.

 

So it wouldnt help to pro-actively inform us that you're playing alongside your partner. We already know that you're playing from the same network.

 

u

[1eyedjack]

We already that  you're playing from the same network.

Out of interest, does that mean that you bar players who pipe their traffic through anonymizer.com and its ilk? Or is that simply ineffective? Or just not attempted?

[uday]

you bar players who pipe their traffic through anonymizer.com and its ilk

 

We don't currently try to do anything like this.

 

There is nothing wrong, in our view, in playing from the same local network. I'd love to be able to bar people who are abusive and tools like anonymizer make this harder. But the long term solution isn't to bar people, it is to limit the ability of "untrusted" users to do damage ( abuse, cheating, inflammatory profiles & chat, blah blah ).

 

Luckily, we don't seem to have more than a handful of crazies who are willing and able to use tools like this.

[1eyedjack]

Luckily, we don't seem to have more than a handful of crazies who are willing and able to use tools like this.

Actually I was thinking of plunging into something like this - nothing to do with BBO, just another line of privacy defence generally in the never ending war against cyber criminals and spyware. But if that makes me a crazy I will have to remember to turn it off when visiting BBO.

[MiltWork]

BBO is one of the greatest Web aps ever developed and it helps to understand that its no substitute for serious bridge tourneys. The diversity of the players is BBO's greatest asset and given the nature of technology, buzzes around cheating can not be dodged.

 

And I pose the question, does a better social networking site exist?

 

When I am accused, I try to have something humorous in reply. i.e. we would do even better if we knew all 4 hands, instead of just the 2, or there's static in skype today and I misunderstood what clubs my p said he/she had.

 

My thoughts are most cheaters are just experimenting and will give it up soon enough, and there's no reason to spend much energy on them. If perhaps they cost you a win, alert the TD of your suspicions but again we're just here for fun anyway.

[Finch]

Not that my husband and I play online very much, but if we did I think you'd be more surprised if we weren't logged on from the same IP address than if we were...

[Tola18]

how to declare and prove that you are honest despite playing with the ability to cheat.

One interesting point here is, in f2f bridge there are a lot of cheating possibilities.

Only real defence is the presumption people dont cheat, and especially - not the really good players...

 

F.eks. If you want to peek in opps cards - it is very often possible! People with good sight - can not seldom see cards at other tables (playing barometer all play the same boards).

People with good ears can often overhear explanations from other tables.

When round is more then halfway - often discussions from other tables. Most players dont have discipline talking in code (hearts instead of "that suit"). Or if the boards wanders up the line - you can often hear discussion on the board who comes to you next.

 

Mannerisms. Conscious or not. For example, it is VERY common people play with fingers on the table like a piano. A nervous mannerism, they very seldom cheat - as they dont get extra good results. But as opponent - you cant never know... In any case, a steady partner learns to read of partners mannerisms...

 

At the end of play, you dont agree about taken tricks. You being the better player quickly say a serie of tricks... A intermediate usually dont remembers. Not that fast...

IF he remembers, you quickly agree...

Same with some claims...

 

And so on...

[Trinidad]

I used to play a lot of face to face bridge with my wife. Of course I am biased, but I think that she is a very handy player. She can push opponents around and make IMPs appear out of nowhere. Despite the fact that she was playing with me, we were quite succesful as a pair.

 

Then the children were born. Since one of us needs to take care of the kids, we didn't have the possibility to play together. But then we thought of BBO! We could play together while the kids were sleeping!

 

Obviously, we wanted to be open about playing from the same room. We decided to choose two matching logins to make it obvious that we belong together. I remember that the first couple that we came up with was 'Simon' and 'Garfunkel' but 'Simon' was already taken. I think the next couple was 'Sonny' and 'Cher' or something like that but that didn't work either. Neither did 'Bill' and 'Hillary'. But 'Trinidad' and 'Tobago' weren't taken yet, so we never needed to try 'Minneapolis' and 'St. Paul'.

 

We put in our profiles that we were playing from the same room and the reason for it. The effect was that people came to our table, played two tricks and left. Every now and then they would play a full hand and the 'C word' would come out. Playing bridge together on BBO was simply impossible.

 

So, in that respect, BBO couldn't give us what we had hoped for. That is not a complaint, since BBO did give us a lot of other things. Though my wife rarely plays bridge anymore, we really enjoy watching VuGraph from time to time. And we used to practice our bidding system.

 

The good part: About once a year, typically when the grandparents are visiting from abroad, I get to play with her at my local bridge club (where I normally play with another partner). There is always a pair who doesn't know her and thinks that it is so nice of me to introduce my wife to bridge. They will tell her how lovely it is to meet her. She will reply that she thinks it is lovely to be there... and then she proceeds to kick ass. :rolleyes:

 

Rik

[Old York]

A top scoring regular player in my swiss pairs once took a totally unnecessary finesse with KQTxx in dummy and Axx in hand, sure enough he found Jxxx in second hand. The dummy was not short of entry cards

He was certainly a good enough player to lead to King, back to Ace and then take the marked finesse, so why finesse at the first opportunity?

 

I will never be convinced that this play (and many others) was not double-dummy, he always has kibs at his table.... but it is impossible to prove that he is cheating

 

I have banned kibs ever since, and this player immediately stopped registering

I only wish that I were allowed to name this player. He plays in most free tournies that allow kibs, often winning with 83% etc

 

Tony :)

[inquiry]

A top scoring regular player in my swiss pairs once took a totally unnecessary finesse with KQTxx in dummy and Axx in hand, sure enough he found Jxxx in second hand. The dummy was not short of entry cards

He was certainly a good enough player to lead to King, back to Ace and then take the marked finesse, so why finesse at the first opportunity?

 

I will never be convinced that this play (and many others) was not double-dummy, he always has kibs at his table.... but it is impossible to prove that he is cheating

 

I have banned kibs ever since, and this player immediately stopped registering

I only wish that I were allowed to name this player. He plays in most free tournies that allow kibs, often winning with 83% etc

 

Tony :(

There is nothing stopping you from send his name to abuse at bridgebase dot com or giving it in private to any of the normal yellows (not to a vugraph yellow of course).

[1eyedjack]

He was certainly a good enough player to lead to King, back to Ace and then take the marked finesse, so why finesse at the first opportunity?

Heh. One thing that really stretches the imagination, is if he is a good enough player to play King, Ace and finesse, then he would be a good enough player to play it the same way even in the foreknowledge of the layout.

[mtvesuvius]

He was certainly a good enough player to lead to King, back to Ace and then take the marked finesse, so why finesse at the first opportunity?

Heh. One thing that really stretches the imagination, is if he is a good enough player to play King, Ace and finesse, then he would be a good enough player to play it the same way even in the foreknowledge of the layout.

Good player, idiotic person. Very simple :(