Cheating

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Will social media and the attendant hand-held devices increase cheating at on-line bridge ?

 

It just seems that instant messaging/ texting/ photo transfers are so much faster and easier these days.

 

I'm just curious and was wondering how prevalent cheating is now compared to "before smartphones, etc " ?

[f0rdy]

Doesn't online instant messaging predate online bridge? Or at least, predate most online bridge; I wasn't playing so I don't know much about what was happening with online bridge before 2001, but plenty of people were using MSN Messenger back then. And obviously other modes of online communication before that.

 

I don't see that smartphones make much difference? If I'm sitting at a computer playing BBO, then if I want to speak to someone online for whatever reason I'm going to use one of the myriad means of doing so on my computer, not fiddle around on my phone.

[ArtK78]

I often wonder about cheating in online bridge.

 

I play in a lot of ACBL 12-board games on BBO. There is a time limit of about an hour for the 12 boards. Normally I finish the 12 boards in about 20-25 minutes, sometimes faster, but rarely more than 30 minutes (unless I get interrupted or I nod off in the middle of a game).

 

At the conclusion of the game, I can kibbitz the players who have yet to finish. Sometimes I find a player who has not played board 1 after 25 minutes of play. I have speculated (and I certainly have no evidence) that the player is waiting for another player to tell him what is going on on board 1 before he plays it. I would be in a position to advise such a player, having completed the boards. Furthermore, I have access to all 4 hands for each board that I played.

 

So, if someone wanted to cheat, and they had someone willing to help them out, it would be easy to cheat in these games.

 

I would hope that the powers that be are aware of this possibility and routinely monitor the results of players who do not play for the first 20-30 minutes in a tournament and then complete the boards to see if there is any correlation between late starters and unusually good results.

[wyman]

I often wonder about cheating in online bridge.

 

I play in a lot of ACBL 12-board games on BBO. There is a time limit of about an hour for the 12 boards. Normally I finish the 12 boards in about 20-25 minutes, sometimes faster, but rarely more than 30 minutes (unless I get interrupted or I nod off in the middle of a game).

 

At the conclusion of the game, I can kibbitz the players who have yet to finish. Sometimes I find a player who has not played board 1 after 25 minutes of play. I have speculated (and I certainly have no evidence) that the player is waiting for another player to tell him what is going on on board 1 before he plays it. I would be in a position to advise such a player, having completed the boards. Furthermore, I have access to all 4 hands for each board that I played.

 

So, if someone wanted to cheat, and they had someone willing to help them out, it would be easy to cheat in these games.

 

I would hope that the powers that be are aware of this possibility and routinely monitor the results of players who do not play for the first 20-30 minutes in a tournament and then complete the boards to see if there is any correlation between late starters and unusually good results.

 

There are other possibilities. Sometimes I'll fire a robodoop up from my desk, and before it starts, I'll get distracted by something at work. And then I'll come back 30 minutes in and speedball the rest of the tourney. More often than not, this happens midway thru since I can unreg if someone grabs me before we start, but it happens.

 

I agree that TPTB should monitor this type of behavior. Although I definitely do some weird things in robodoops and occasionally have some very good results, so I hope I don't get flagged! :P

[johnu]

routinely monitor the results of players who do not play for the first 20-30 minutes in a tournament and then complete the boards to see if there is any correlation between late starters and unusually good results.

 

Why would they need to wait 25-30 minutes until all the boards are played if they were cheating? Just knowing the next board to be played is enough.

[inquiry]

I doubt that there will be an increase in cheating at online bridge because of social media or hand held devices. If someone wants to cheat at online bridge, there are ample ways to exchange information. From playing on one computer in the same room, from using plain old telephones to talk to each other, google phone, Skype, a host of instant messaging systems, to one person playing as two people on one computer. Adding another way or two to cheat is not going to change the dynamics at all.

 

There is a small subset of people who are going to cheat. The BBO actively tries to find those cheating in games that cost money to play in, and to create cheat free events like robot races, ect.

[Mbodell]

I often wonder about cheating in online bridge.

 

I play in a lot of ACBL 12-board games on BBO. There is a time limit of about an hour for the 12 boards. Normally I finish the 12 boards in about 20-25 minutes, sometimes faster, but rarely more than 30 minutes (unless I get interrupted or I nod off in the middle of a game).

 

At the conclusion of the game, I can kibbitz the players who have yet to finish. Sometimes I find a player who has not played board 1 after 25 minutes of play. I have speculated (and I certainly have no evidence) that the player is waiting for another player to tell him what is going on on board 1 before he plays it. I would be in a position to advise such a player, having completed the boards. Furthermore, I have access to all 4 hands for each board that I played.

 

So, if someone wanted to cheat, and they had someone willing to help them out, it would be easy to cheat in these games.

 

I would hope that the powers that be are aware of this possibility and routinely monitor the results of players who do not play for the first 20-30 minutes in a tournament and then complete the boards to see if there is any correlation between late starters and unusually good results.

 

I sometimes fire up a tournament and then go have a shower or put away laundry or whatever and then come back an finish. I like getting more accurate barometer results and the results of the tournament right after I finish.

[iviehoff]

There was a famous incident of cheating in on-line backgammon, where someone who had to that point successfully posed as a leading backgammon players was exposed in 2006 as using computer assistance to play. http://www.bkgm.com/rgb/rgb.cgi?view+1386

 

Bridge computers don't really play so very reliably yet, whereas in backgammon and chess they play consistently better than any human, a situation that arrived a few years earlier than in backgammon than chess. There is also a difference that in bridge a sight of the opponents' cards can be worth a lot more than a skill upgrade.

[Zelandakh]

Some examples of this in chess off Wiki. I think it would be quite easy to cheat at bridge using technology if someone really wanted to. For example having silent vibrating pagers attached to each leg that someone watching vugraph uses to indicate key features of a hand using a pre-determined code. Even a simple "bid or don't bid" signal would be valuable and probably not easy to catch unless badly abused. The possibilities certainly put things like showing how many hearts you hold well into the shade.

[1eyedjack]

There is a genuine "bridge" reason (other than cheating) why an individual playing in a tournament may delay his start of play to hand 1, which is to ensure (as far as possible) that the barometer score that he sees as the tourney progresses is as close to the final score as possible.

If you chose to use this method to cheat it does not seem to be a very covert method.

[ArtK78]

There was a famous incident of cheating in on-line backgammon, where someone who had to that point successfully posed as a leading backgammon players was exposed in 2006 as using computer assistance to play. http://www.bkgm.com/...b.cgi?view+1386

 

Bridge computers don't really play so very reliably yet, whereas in backgammon and chess they play consistently better than any human, a situation that arrived a few years earlier than in backgammon than chess. There is also a difference that in bridge a sight of the opponents' cards can be worth a lot more than a skill upgrade.

I had a personal experience relating to this incident. I used to play a lot of backgammon online against some of the best players. I had some success, but I am not a truly top level player. As in bridge, there is a significant gap between the run of the mill expert and the truly elite. At the time that rumors were circulating in the backgammon online community about alleged cheating by a top player, I was at the Lancaster PA regional, playing with and sharing a room with a top online backgammon player. I remember relaxing in our room while he was on his laptop and telling me about the brewing scandal, and how a player was playing nearly perfect backgammon according to computer backgammon programs (which are quite good, by the way). I found it interesting, but I didn't really pay too much attention to it. At the time, I had already cut back on my online backgammon, so I didn't feel as much a part of the online backgammon community as I did previously.

 

It turned out that the cheater was, in fact, my bridge partner.

 

He had a history of sorts, as I found out later. He had been suspended from ACBL competition for some time for circulating through the room between rounds in pair events to obtain information about boards. Apparently, he has a personality disorder that lends itself to taking whatever edge he can get, legal or otherwise.

[mycroft]

For example having silent vibrating pagers attached to each leg that someone watching vugraph uses to indicate key features of a hand using a pre-determined code. Even a simple "bid or don't bid" signal would be valuable and probably not easy to catch unless badly abused. The possibilities certainly put things like showing how many hearts you hold well into the shade.

I've said before, and without proof (obviously) I continue to believe, that one bit of information, given to a world-1 class player by a world-2 class player watching vugraph, would elevate the player to world champion level. It would certainly be suspected that he had a wire, as the bit of information I'd pass is "the obvious thing doesn't work" - i.e. if there's a 65% play and a 58% play, it's the 58% play that works.

[billw55]

About the backgammon thing. Even in 2006, it was obvious to me that cheating online was easy and common, in any game. The internet is a jungle, any and all sorts of skullduggery are rampant. I long ago stopped worrying about online cheating when money is not involved (was the gammon thing over money games? - that would be different). What's the point? Who cares, and why? What makes it such a huge scandal instead of just another everyday cheat?

 

It sort of reminds of the movie "Quiz Show", about the TV game show scandal from the 1950s. I could only respond by laughing that anyone ever took a TV show so seriously to begin with. They had congressional hearings, over whether a TV show was real?!? Free online cheating feels similar. Why should I get worked up about it?

[GreenMan]

Vibrating pagers are not entirely silent; they'd be noticed in a quiet room.

 

However, I think in-ear wireless receivers have gotten small enough to be effectively invisible unless you're peering in like an otolaryngologist, and of course they could be disguised as hearing aids. In fact I'd be surprised if some players aren't already using such devices. (I don't have anyone specific in mind here, just believe that if the tech is available, inevitably someone will use it.)

[ggwhiz]

There are so many ways to cheat it doesn't matter if there are a few more.

 

I am one of many that play with my spouse out of the same ip address and BBO does a great job under the circumstances. I'm pretty sure we were reported for an insanely lucky defense after an opps comment but they could see a -1100 on an insanely unlucky (or just insane) auction from the same session of play.

 

BBO is on the ball, all you have to do is report to abuse@bbo and they have the history at their fingertips. Cheaters are out there but they have a shelf life.

[cherdano]

BBO is on the ball, all you have to do is report to abuse@bbo and they have the history at their fingertips. Cheaters are out there but they have a shelf life.

I don't think BBO spends much resources on catching cheaters in free tournaments/team matches/MBC games.

And there are cheaters with a seemingly pretty long shelf life on BBO.