Cheating Allegations

[eagles123]

on Bridgewinners lately been a whole load of boring nonsense about alleged cheating but the recent developments are kinda intriguing. Anyone ITK have any insight :P

 

Eagles

[kuhchung]

I was wondering why all was quiet on this front, but then I stopped wondering and kept refreshing BW.

[diana_eva]

i don't think those ITK would ruin BB's timing by revealing anything here or elsewhere before he's ready to reveal whatever he has, himself.

[mike777]

why is this issue spingold...past spingold cheating.... not discussed here?

 

 

at this point:

1) players do not say a very famous pair cheat

2) but they make that meaning clear without saying it(teammates say give up past wins)

3) people complain zero evidence or just mean ugly gossip or ugly jealous

--------

 

Larry Cohen presents separate issue on methods to catch top class cheating

1) Larry presents a method

2) others debate the method

---------

 

 

both threads say cheating at top levels is a big problem, including high tech methods, cell phone methods

 

transfer a tiny bit of bridge information=huge cheating

 

http://bridgewinners.com/

[sfi]

why is this issue spingold...past spingold cheating.... not discussed here?

 

 

at this point:

1) players do not say a very famous pair cheat

2) but they make that meaning clear without saying it(teammates say give up past wins)

3) people complain zero evidence or just mean ugly gossip or ugly jealous

--------

 

Larry Cohen presents separate issue on methods to catch top class cheating

1) Larry presents a method

2) others debate the method

---------

 

 

both threads say cheating at top levels is a big problem, including high tech methods, cell phone methods

 

transfer a tiny bit of bridge information=huge cheating

 

http://bridgewinners.com/

 

My take is that almost everyone there is discussing rumours and innuendo without hard evidence. I disagree that nobody says this famous pair is cheating - quite a few people have said so. But without promised evidence and a process that provides natural justice, there is much more heat than light at this point.

 

That's not to say that nobody in the rest of the bridge world, here included, is interested in the outcome. Many people are, and I'm sure there are many more discussions offline than online (for instance, I have a number of thoughts on the matters, but they will stay off the internet). One way or another, the world of serious competitive bridge is going to be significantly changed in the near future by the result of the issues currently being discussed.

[Vampyr]

My take is that almost everyone there is discussing rumours and innuendo without hard evidence. I disagree that nobody says this famous pair is cheating - quite a few people have said so. But without promised evidence and a process that provides natural justice, there is much more heat than light at this point.

 

That's not to say that nobody in the rest of the bridge world, here included, is interested in the outcome. Many people are, and I'm sure there are many more discussions offline than online (for instance, I have a number of thoughts on the matters, but they will stay off the internet). One way or another, the world of serious competitive bridge is going to be significantly changed in the near future by the result of the issues currently being discussed.

 

Significantly changed? How?

[Zelandakh]

I disagree that nobody says this famous pair is cheating - quite a few people have said so.

Which famous pair? As someone that does not use bridgewinners, could someone perhaps write a short summary of what has been said so far? I take it we are not talking about the issue in general but of something more specific but it is going to be difficult to discuss it here without knowing what is going on.

[Vampyr]

Which famous pair? As someone that does not use bridgewinners, could someone perhaps write a short summary of what has been said so far? I take it we are not talking about the issue in general but of something more specific but it is going to be difficult to discuss it here without knowing what is going on.

 

I think it would be best not to discuss it or name names on this site, since at present there are only allegations without evidence.

[MrAce]

Which famous pair? As someone that does not use bridgewinners, could someone perhaps write a short summary of what has been said so far? I take it we are not talking about the issue in general but of something more specific but it is going to be difficult to discuss it here without knowing what is going on.

 

I do not know why you do not use BW, and it is none of my business. But if the reason is that you do not like their policy, management or whatever it maybe, you can still just read and not participate.

I will pm you the details.

[sfi]

Significantly changed? How?

 

Two ways, IMO. First is that reputations of some top players will be damaged no matter what the final outcome is - the current allegations have already been published in at least one UK paper (link somewhere on bridgewinners). Second and more important is that there appears to be enough frustration among top players about cheating that systemic changes may be made. What those effects might be we'll have to wait and see.

 

I agree with your comment about not naming names - it's easy enough to find by even a cursory look through the forums over there. And I wouldn't even want to attempt a short summary.

[captyogi]

For Cheating in Bridge Game what all methods can be used ?

I narrate one or two methods which come to my mind.

Man is a Creature, all the time progressing, it is this thinking ability of Man, has brought Man from Caveman to Present Status.

Thinking can be Constructive, for the betterment and Progress of Mankind, at a same time it can Destructive type also.

 

At Local Level Club Tourneys, if there is one Bermuda Level Player and rest normal Exp, Adv, Int and Novice, in Local tournament he will win many times ( nobody will say much ), but not all the times, if it happens all the times , eyebrows will be raised.

Same Player and Regional Level or National / International ( Europe International can be as Good as National Level for USA, India ), where there is competition is Tough and Equally Good Players ( Bermuda / National / International Level ) are there, Results should be mixed, but now if One particular player keeps winning hands down, match after match, thrashing other Top Class Teams 20-0, if eyebrows are raised, gossiping starts, there should be no harm, you cannot directly accuse, but investigation / brain storming starts, what is wrong in that ?.

 

I put forward some hypothetical , but possible Cheating Methods

 

Cheating Method 1 :

 

Expert Level Player gets involved in Dealing, Machine Dealt Boards, copies .PBN or .LIN files on pen drive , takes them home and at peace goes through all the deals, makes note of Typical Deals and makes Good Use of this information on the table, every round of 8 to 10 deals, IMP Scoring, 2 deals, where Slam or Game is not possible to bid , but it is Cold or other way round , Slam or Game has to be bid , but it is bound to fail for sure, are Good Enough for your team to give 20-0 Win.

 

Cheating Method 2 :

 

With somebody in Dealing Team or Vu Graf Team, who is willing to compromise integrity, Cheating Expert makes a deal with him ( of course at cost )and gets Dealt Boards .PBN or .LIN files on pen drive, 20-0 victory is assured.

 

Crooks, Cheats, Terrorist, Guerillas their brain is working overtime all the times, trying device new new innovative methods, world is facing brunt everyday, How Bridge can be exception, we are part of this world. We better prepare to counter such destructive methods and stay alive or perish.

[1eyedjack]

@captyogi

 

Mind if I ask what brand of mushrooms you are smoking?

[cherdano]

My take is that almost everyone there is discussing rumours and innuendo without hard evidence.

Not sure what you call hard evidence. I only know Brogeland very little, but to me he seems the kind of very smart person who thinks really hard about the topics he decides to think about. (Back when I watched a lot of Vugraph I always thought he is the world's best player.) I would be shocked if he doesn't have very convincing evidence.

[gwnn]

I do not know why you do not use BW, and it is none of my business. But if the reason is that you do not like their policy, management or whatever it maybe, you can still just read and not participate.

I will pm you the details.

One for me too please! I have a basic understanding of what is going on but it's tough to understand because there are thousands of posts and several threads on the same thing.

[sfi]

Not sure what you call hard evidence. I only know Brogeland very little, but to me he seems the kind of very smart person who thinks really hard about the topics he decides to think about. (Back when I watched a lot of Vugraph I always thought he is the world's best player.) I would be shocked if he doesn't have very convincing evidence.

 

I did say 'almost everyone' precisely because I did not want to make any judgement about whether there is evidence or how compelling it might be. If there is, most people in the discussions do not have it yet.

[captyogi]

@captyogi

 

Mind if I ask what brand of mushrooms you are smoking?

 

@ 1eyedjack,

 

Sorry, I could not understand what you have to say, can you please explain in normal layman language ?

[ggwhiz]

I think the whole point is to get some action to fix a broken system and I can't think of anyone being disciplined for cheating (like the Doctors) that didn't first get away with it for at least 10 years. Those titles being vacated is no consolation to the people that should have won them.

 

Buried in the giant thread a comment from Boye Brogeland indicates that his public grandstanding is in large part a frustration with official foot dragging, especially with the World Championships fast approaching.

 

Larry Cohen has started a lively debate on how volunteers from the top level can fix a system that the ACBL (or anyone else for that matter) doesn't have the resources or the will to tackle. It wouldn't surprise me if the current system is to take this allegation and to take a year or more to gather and examine evidence from the past x number of years before making a ruling and that just sucks.

 

Hardly boring stuff to me.

[barmar]

Which famous pair? As someone that does not use bridgewinners, could someone perhaps write a short summary of what has been said so far? I take it we are not talking about the issue in general but of something more specific but it is going to be difficult to discuss it here without knowing what is going on.

Basically, Boye Brogeland and 3 other members of his team that won the 2014 Spingold have announced that they think the other pair on their team (Fisher-Schwartz) are cheaters, and they want to relinquish their win in the event. He hasn't made the evidence he's gathered public yet.

 

The thing that some people find most suspicious about this is that this came out just a week or so after his team lost to them in this year's Spingold (F-S were again in the team that won the event). So some see it as sour grapes over the loss.

[mikeh]

I know a few players who play on a regular or semi-regular basis in the 'big' events, but know very few of the very best players...tho Allan Graves is a friend of mine and a former partner/teammate.

 

He loves the game with a passion, and I am not the least surprised that he is one of those offering to vacate the titles he has won over the last year or so.

 

However, I don't agree at all with the way that Brogeland is going about this. I appreciate that he is frustrated, but while official organizations often take a long time to deal with allegations even when supported by cogent evidence, they generally DO deal with them eventually.

 

The cases in which the ACBL, for example, have handled things badly (Katz-Cohen in the 1970s is the one that springs to mind), it was in fact at least partly due to being too quick off the mark, and not being able to evaluate the evidence, afford a hearing, and so on. That led to the guilty parties suing and eventually getting reinstated. When the foot-soldiers got caught, once again the investigation came to a premature end because of someone speaking out. Thus the Italian team captain wasn't brought into the investigation, in a way that would have required him to witness the cheating mechanism..the result was that the Italians argued that the accusations were sour grapes by the Americans.

 

Here, we seem to risk a similar argument...indeed, it has already been suggested that Brogeland spoke out now in part because he resented losing to his former teammates. I don't ascribe to that view....I am mentioning it only as a reason, one amongst many, for not doing this as he is doing it.

 

While anger, frustration and loathing of those who cheat can be difficult to swallow, surely the better approach would have been to alert the ACBL not only of the cheating but of one's idea of how they were doing it. On BW, Woolsey has posted that, having looked at some hands, he has a hypothesis about how they do it, and that Brogeland told him he had the same hypothesis.

 

If so, then the best way of identifying the cheating would be to do nothing now, but instead to use the next event they play as an experiment. Have some trusted experts look at the hand records in advance, and make predictions based on the hypothesis and see what happens.

 

Yes, that is not best for the integrity of the event just finished, or of the next event. Proving cheating would give the losers of the finals the event, but does nothing for the teams beaten, by cheats, earlier in the event. But it would make contesting the allegations very difficult.

 

As it is, the accused pair is now tarnished, probably beyond redemption, even tho we do not as yet have any evidence in the public domain. While I accept that Brogeland is an extremely honest, and talented, player, he remains human and thus it is possible that he is seeing something that he is miss-interpreting. Even if he isn't, he is still doing this the wrong way, imo.

[cherdano]

Basically, Boye Brogeland and 3 other members of his team that won the 2014 Spingold have announced that they think the other pair on their team (Fisher-Schwartz) are cheaters, and they want to relinquish their win in the event. He hasn't made the evidence he's gathered public yet.

 

The thing that some people find most suspicious about this is that this came out just a week or so after his team lost to them in this year's Spingold (F-S were again in the team that won the event). So some see it as sour grapes over the loss.

 

That's a bit of a biased summary IMO.

 

• This started with a post from Brogeland hinting that he has strong evidence of cheating and has alerted the relevant bridge authorities (WBF, ACBL, etc.)
  
• He explained that he was unsatisfied with their responsiveness, and that really wants the matter resolved before the upcoming world championships. He said he has the equivalent of a straight flush in spades, and would start revealing more cards (reveal more information, or put more on the line from his side) one-by-one until authorities would act.
  
• The announcement that the Schwartz team wants to relinquish their titles (they won three tournaments with Fisher-Schwartz) is apparently the 10 of spades - and he said the J of spades would be coming soon.
  
• Meanwhile, every single top player who posted an opinion made clear that they believe the accusations. E.g. Geoff Hampson wrote that when he declares against them, he always assumes that opening leader's partner has strength in the suit led. "So far, I have always been lucky [with that assumption]." Others (Michelsen, Fredin) started posting hands where in their view Fisher-Schwartz took ridiculous but successful actions in bidding or defense.
  

 

Brogeland did indeed say that he realized what is happening after looking through the hands at the other table in his team's quarter-finals loss to Cayne (which included Fisher-Schwartz). This apparently included three false claims, including one that wasn't caught until after the correction period.

[cherdano]

However, I don't agree at all with the way that Brogeland is going about this. I appreciate that he is frustrated,

 

[...]

 

While anger, frustration and loathing of those who cheat can be difficult to swallow, surely the better approach would have been to alert the ACBL not only of the cheating but of one's idea of how they were doing it.

(Emphasis mine.)

 

According to Brogeland, this is exactly what he did. What exactly makes you think Brogeland is lying about this?

 

As I said above, Brogeland is possibly the best, and certainly one of the smartest bridge players (calling him "talented" is rather patronizing, IMO). I don't think he would have done what he did without having clear proof.

 

ETA: If Brogeland is wrong, then he'll have destroyed his own reputation much more than the reputation of F-S. This makes this very different from, say, a random BBF poster publicly accusing a pair of cheating.

[Vampyr]

(Emphasis mine.)

 

According to Brogeland, this is exactly what he did. What exactly makes you think Brogeland is lying about this?

 

As I said above, Brogeland is possibly the best, and certainly one of the smartest bridge players (calling him "talented" is rather patronizing, IMO). I don't think he would have done what he did without having clear proof.

 

ETA: If Brogeland is wrong, then he'll have destroyed his own reputation much more than the reputation of F-S. This makes this very different from, say, a random BBF poster publicly accusing a pair of cheating.

 

Making the allegations publicly, and making that grandstanding announcement will prolong the process of catching the alleged cheaters. Surely they will lie low for quite awhile.

 

I had been wondering whether BB suspected what they were supposedly doing when he was their teammate. Since apparently he did, it's a little odd that he didn't speak up then.

 

I am disappointed that the names of the accused were mentioned on this forum, and I appeal to the poster who wrote them to edit his post.

[mikeh]

That's a bit of a biased summary IMO.

 

• This started with a post from Brogeland hinting that he has strong evidence of cheating and has alerted the relevant bridge authorities (WBF, ACBL, etc.)
  
• He explained that he was unsatisfied with their responsiveness, and that really wants the matter resolved before the upcoming world championships. He said he has the equivalent of a straight flush in spades, and would start revealing more cards (reveal more information, or put more on the line from his side) one-by-one until authorities would act.
  
• The announcement that the Schwartz team wants to relinquish their titles (they won three tournaments with Fisher-Schwartz) is apparently the 10 of spades - and he said the J of spades would be coming soon.
  
• Meanwhile, every single top player who posted an opinion made clear that they believe the accusations. E.g. Geoff Hampson wrote that when he declares against them, he always assumes that opening leader's partner has strength in the suit led. "So far, I have always been lucky [with that assumption]." Others (Michelsen, Fredin) started posting hands where in their view Fisher-Schwartz took ridiculous but successful actions in bidding or defense.
  

 

Brogeland did indeed say that he realized what is happening after looking through the hands at the other table in his team's quarter-finals loss to Cayne (which included Fisher-Schwartz). This apparently included three false claims, including one that wasn't caught until after the correction period.

I agree with your summary...that is how I read the BW thread as well. I still maintain that this approach by Brogeland, understandable tho it is on a human level, is not the way that these matters should be handled. Bureaucratic organizations, of which the ACBL is one, and especially small 'p' political ones, which the ACBL most assuredly is, not only need time to do things correctly, but we should all WANT them to do things correctly. The ACBL screws up enough procedural matters as it is....look at what has happened to Passell very recently...I know Mike, not well but we have been teammates more than once, and we are on friendly terms....and I believe his version of events in the absence of any compelling reason not to do so. So Brogeland is way out on a limb when he starts making public allegations of cheating, unsupported by evidence, merely because the ACBL hasn't yet done anything about allegations less than a couple of weeks old.

 

At this juncture, much as I dislike the notion that cheating happened, I hope that the allegations are made out, since otherwise Brogeland may be in a world of trouble, not least with the ACBL. Everything I know of him, which isn't much, says that he is an exemplar of the professional expert player and it would be sad to see him get severely punished for speaking out, even tho I think him wrong to do so.

[cherdano]

Vampyr, you do realize that you are arguing in favour of letting them win a world championship first?

[mikeh]

(Emphasis mine.)

 

According to Brogeland, this is exactly what he did. What exactly makes you think Brogeland is lying about this?

 

As I said above, Brogeland is possibly the best, and certainly one of the smartest bridge players (calling him "talented" is rather patronizing, IMO). I don't think he would have done what he did without having clear proof.

 

ETA: If Brogeland is wrong, then he'll have destroyed his own reputation much more than the reputation of F-S. This makes this very different from, say, a random BBF poster publicly accusing a pair of cheating.

Arend: it must be something in the way I write or the way you read, but I wasn't the least patronizing when I described Brogeland. He is one of a small number of exceptional players, from my limited knowledge of him. I shouldn't have put a comma after 'honest' but I had meant 'extremely honest and extremely talented'. Is that patronizing?

 

And nothing I said suggests that he was lying! I didn't summarize my understanding of his posts...I just agreed with yours! Read my second post to see what I think: he is making a mistake, imo, by allowing his frustration at the perceived slow reaction of the ACBL to lead him to going public.

 

Cut me a little slack when parsing my posts: I get the impression that every time I post something, you look through it striving to find something that you can blow up, distort and score points in whatever mind game you think we are playing. I really don't understand this. I have never met you. We don't have any real life history. You seem to have an image of me in your mind, which is different from who (I think) I am.