Elinescu-Wladow were stupid. You haven't found the smart cheats...

[nige1]

I wouldn't play bridge if it meant sitting alone playing online; for me much of the point is seeing people and socialising, going out for meals, having a few drinks afterwards (and often a few more) while going over the hands, etc. Also being at the table with everyone who is actually involved in the hands is important to me, even when screens are in use.

This evening we played a 32-board match, and I can't imagine putting in the time and effort required if it had been impossible to talk and joke around the table, eat sandwiches at half-time, go over a few interesting hands with teammates over a drink, and the like.

Of course some of these things can still be done even if you played separated from your partner and others at your table, but for me and for many others even the cards are important.

Presumably, computers would mainly be used for serious matches. Assuming, for the moment, that everybody is playing at the same venue, Vampyr would ony be deprived of talking and joking at the table. During a serious match, players might not appreciate social chat.

• Banter with opponents might degenerate into gamesmanshp.
• During the hand, banter between partners might engender suspicion of illegal communication.

IMO, important competitions would still be held in one venue, because officials could more easily set up and monitor arrangements. Hence Vampyr would still socialise between sessions.

[Free]

The other reason why I don't worry about this too much is that even though I play at a reasonably serious level, I just don't believe the gains from cheating are generally enough to offset the costs. So, for example, for a recent league match we were offered the opportunity to use pre-dealt boards, even though the traditional approach is for boards to be dealt at the table. Using pre-dealt boards offers the home team increased opportunities for cheating, but on the other hand players like the opportunity to have hand records they can study afterwards. In this sort of situation, my belief is that people are playing the game to enjoy themselves. I just can't envisage people wanting to devote a whole evening to playing a game that they have already rendered pointless by fixing the deals or looking at the hands, or whatever. So accepting the offer to pre-deal the boards is a no-brainer in my mind.

Although I agree with what you say, I think you're missing an important point about cheating with pre-dealt boards: they don't need to study every deal. They can look through the hand records for a few slam deals and remember those. The rest of the deals are played for fun (knowing they don't need to investigate slam), but these few slam deals could give them an edge.

 

This reminds me of a pair that was caught in our country for fixing one or two boards in a couple of matches. The hands weren't even pre-dealt, but this pair "helped" dealing the cards before the play began. They managed to skip dealing a board they had pre-dealt (probably by dealing another board twice, which nobody notices unless you pay attention to it). The result was usually the same: a crazy auction and anti-percentage line of play gave them an edge when vulnerable. Obviously they were suspected of cheating long before they got caught and once they had their reputation, people were very suspicious and studying every detail until they finally got caught. They could've gotten away with it, but they were just too stupid and greedy to stop...

[MrAce]

How can anyone get the hand records ? I mean i can use my imagination how one can get them maybe one time, somehow, but how can he get it all the time, or frequently ?

[aguahombre]

How can anyone get the hand records ? I mean i can use my imagination how one can get them maybe one time, somehow, but how can he get it all the time, or frequently ?

It has been done, apparently...and proven, and the perpetrator was banned.

 

West coast players know the case.

[steve2005]

what they need is the cone of silence (from Get Smart) around everyone lol

[blackshoe]

ACBL Score was written in Fortran and it took them forever to find a 90 year old programmer sharp enough to come up with a Windows version. And it still sucks.

 

How much more tech savvy is the WBF? [end rant]

 

I would never spend moola and vacation time to go to a tournament, sit in a room with a bunch of strangers and play a video game.

I don't know about currently, I haven't looked at it in a while, but my understanding of the original situation vis-a-vis the "windows version" is that all your 90 year old programmer did was to put a Windows "face" on the DOS program. The latter is (or was) still there behind the scenes. And now we have ACBLSCore+ which is, if I'm not mistaken, in its second or third year of development with not even an alpha (as far as I know, anyway) in sight.

[PhilKing]

How can anyone get the hand records ? I mean i can use my imagination how one can get them maybe one time, somehow, but how can he get it all the time, or frequently ?

 

There are a few cases from high stakes poker where Trojans were planted on to a player's computer giving the villains remote access so they could play against the mark with full knowledge of the cards.

 

In most bridge competitions, one often sees unmanned computers between sessions. It doesn't take a huge leap to see what could happen - and one probably would not have to be a computer genius to do it.

 

One doesn't even have to crack any generating codes (and that has certainly happened a few times in the poker world as well).

 

Edit: a quick look at Google (and Youtube) shows that basically any of us (apart from Wladow probably) could do it with a few minutes training:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUlivXL1Y0Q‎

[bluecalm]

. And now we have ACBLSCore+ which is, if I'm not mistaken, in its second or third year of development with not even an alpha (as far as I know, anyway) in sight.

 

Tbh it sounds like weekend project for remotely competent programmer. Maybe two weekends if some interface is needed.

Or you know, you can call Polish TD's.. we have full history for every pair, scores +live scores if TD enables them from every tournament played (even most local tournaments) the second after the tournament is over.

We usually play 50bds tournaments divided into 5 sessions. Of course the full histories/scores are online right after every session ends.

[neilkaz]

wanna hear a fun story?

 

Opps play 3♥. Play:

 

1. West leads small spade from AKxx, to partner's singleton Q.

2. Back to West's diamond ace.

3. ♠AK, East discarding two diamonds.

4. Diamond ruff.

 

1 down :)

 

Perpetrators (two croupiers) got erradicated a few months later. This was evidence.

 

Brilliant defense. I'm surprised this didn't win a best defended hand award somewhere.

[Fluffy]

• Disclosure would be much improved Ifsofteare like BBO Full Disclosure were the basic disclosure mechanism. Both opponents would get identical and more complete explanations, without the delay and palaver of scribbling on pieces of paper. They could still use follow-up questions, if necessary.

 

You could even request stats for opponents, and see examples of their hands in similar situations, so it would really be full disclosure.

[MrAce]

Phil, I was referring to close network and and for bridge only. Not internet. I wrote "hand records" I do not think (correct me if I am wrong) poker uses preset hands. Each next hand is totally fresh generated hands and only can be cheated by seeing other hands. (?)

 

You can do the same with video games. Say 8 people gather in a house, hook up their devices to each other and can play multiplayer games w/o using internet.

 

What I actually asking was "If there is a bridge player, who is being suspected of getting the hands records, how can he do that ?"

 

In the new tech I was referring to, no need for preset deals. Preset deals help to duplicate boards, print hand records to give to participants post session, and/or for duplicate machine to read the codes of the cards and duplicate boards. Since there will be no playing cards in use, there won't be need for preset deals.

 

 

 

[barmar]

ACBL Score was written in Fortran and it took them forever to find a 90 year old programmer sharp enough to come up with a Windows version. And it still sucks.

Actually, it was originally written in PL/I, and then converted to Pascal, according to the History page on the ACBLScore+ site.

 

Nicholas Hammond demonstrated ACBLScore+ at the Fall NABC in Phoenix, and they're supposedly running trials with a few clubs and training national directors.

[JanM]

"In most bridge competitions, one often sees unmanned computers between sessions. It doesn't take a huge leap to see what could happen - and one probably would not have to be a computer genius to do it."

 

But those unmanned computers don't have things like hand record files and dealing files on them. The computers that do have that data are separate and are kept in locked rooms (at least at NABCs) and are never connected to the internet. ACBL prints hand records in house to prevent them getting out in advance of an event. At least, so I was told several years ago when someone raised a concern about possible insecurity of USBC hand record information.

 

And in case you're wondering, something I know for certain :) is that I am given the Vugraph files immediately before each set, and I do not log the computers with the hands on them into BBO until the players are ready to start play.

[aguahombre]

So, Jan, maybe you can tell us how a former TD/minor pro was able to access hands, get caught and banned.

[PhilKing]

So, Jan, maybe you can tell us how a former TD/minor pro was able to access hands, get caught and banned.

 

Maybe he used to work for the NSA ...

 

They apparently have something called Cottonmouth-1 that enables them to access computers not connected to the internet.

[aguahombre]

Maybe he used to work for the NSA ...

 

They apparently have something called Cottonmouth-1 that enables them to access computers not connected to the internet.

Cute.

[JanM]

So, Jan, maybe you can tell us how a former TD/minor pro was able to access hands, get caught and banned.

 

I have no idea, but my guess is that this was at Regionals or Sectionals, not NABCs and that the person involved knew someone who did hand duplication. If you want duplicated boards and hand records, you have to trust someone with the files that power the dealing machine.

[awm]

So, Jan, maybe you can tell us how a former TD/minor pro was able to access hands, get caught and banned.

 

Not sure what you're referring to, but if this is the case I'm familiar with from Southern CA, the story is that the player's wife was the director in charge of the hand records for the local regionals, the materials were kept on her computer prior to the tournament, and it's not hard to see how he could've gotten a peek (with or without her knowledge).

[helene_t]

Just read Joost Prinsen's "Een goede speler is niet eerlijk" (a good player is not honest). Lots of interviews with prominent players from the older generation.

 

Piet Boorst, nicknamed the "Rubber King of The Hague", is the source of the quote that became the book's title. He said that people were saying that he must be looking into his opponent's cards since otherwise he couldn't win so frequently. He said that of course he did, if the opponents didn't hold their cards propperly concealed. And most good players do that and/or similar things, in his opinion.

[barmar]

Just read Joost Prinsen's "Een goede speler is niet eerlijk" (a good player is not honest). Lots of interviews with prominent players from the older generation.

 

Piet Boorst, nicknamed the "Rubber King of The Hague", is the source of the quote that became the book's title. He said that people were saying that he must be looking into his opponent's cards since otherwise he couldn't win so frequently. He said that of course he did, if the opponents didn't hold their cards propperly concealed. And most good players do that and/or similar things, in his opinion.

I guess that's why I'm so unsuccessful. Whenever one of my opponents is holding their hand poorly, I try to avoid looking, and tell them to hold it back. I guess I'll never get the hang of this game.

 

But his nickname implies that he's talking specifically about rubber bridge for money. This is often considered a more "cutthroat" game, where almost any tactic goes and players are expected to protect themselves. Read "The Bridge Bum", Alan Sontag's memoir, where he talks about how he helped clients cheat in high-stakes rubber bridge games (IIRC, the opponents were also cheating, so he was just making up for that).

[aguahombre]

Read "The Bridge Bum", Alan Sontag's memoir, where he talks about how he helped clients cheat in high-stakes rubber bridge games (IIRC, the opponents were also cheating, so he was just making up for that).

For the casual reader unfamiliar with the situation or with Sontag, we should make it clear this was not a Bridge game being played under rules of any organization. Nor, because of the cheating of the opponents, was it even Bridge. It was a con game where the bugs became the windshield.

[WellSpyder]

For the casual reader unfamiliar with the situation or with Sontag, we should make it clear this was not a Bridge game being played under rules of any organization. Nor, because of the cheating of the opponents, was it even Bridge. It was a con game where the bugs became the windshield.

Nor, as I recall it, was there any cheating in the way that a duplicate player thinks of the term - just a failure to make clear to the other participants in the game an agreement between two players to share winnings/losses.

[barmar]

Yeah, sorry for the vagueness. It's been a while since I read the book. I wanted to bone up on the details, but I couldn't find it on my bookshelf, so I was just going by (poor) memory.

 

I think the general idea was that it was rubber bridge with rotating partnerships. When he was partnered with his client, he would play to his best ability (which was considerable, enough to carry the client), but when he partnered someone else he would make intentional mistakes to throw games to the client. Am I in the right ballpark?

 

But my point was that in these private rubber bridge games there were essentially no rules other than the basic structure of the game. It shouldn't be extrapolated to duplicate bridge, which has always been considered a "gentleman's game".

[mycroft]

I think it wasn't even that difficult. It was a typical "stacked table" more common in poker (where is more dangerous as the mark can get pushed around), IIRC - and the client was playing against three. There, there is an incentive for whoever is partnering the mark to drop his game slightly (as he doesn't lose anything - client pays all losses, "his" losses get paid back to him).

 

When the client brought in Sontag, he paid (and received) everything; so when Sontag was partnering one of the other two, it was a wash all around (so Sontag didn't have to lighten his skill any!); only when he and the client were playing the two home players did it matter what happened, and he could carry the client.

 

Playing the same game against them, as it seems, but better.

[barmar]

That sounds right. Which makes me wonder why the perpetrators would have allowed Sontag into the game, if the only way the con worked was to have 3 collaborators versus 1 mark. If I could find the book, I expect he explained how he managed to get into it.

 

This also reminds me of the rule in the "Survivor" and "Big Brother" TV shows -- the players are not allowed to form alliances based on an agreement to split the winnings. They have to have a financial incentive to try to win.