Forums people in the event formally known as the Olympiad

[Fluffy]

In my view the likeliest explanation is that you have become better - you make fewer mistakes, but you still notice more that you could have done better, and you notice more mistakes by the opponents.

Maybe me, but the idea came from more experienced members of the team. You could argue that in WBG we were in the "weak" group, but I really had the same feeling in Budapest, and there I played with slight fever for the first half. Maybe it is just all the big names that are missing, not only suspended pairs.

[cherdano]

But the Spanish team behaved correctly.

LOL.

[nige1]

...The accusation might be wrong. The evidence might be inadequate. But the Spanish team behaved correctly. Reporting what you believe to be an infraction is legal and sensible...

LOL.

Why does Cherdano find that amusing? IMO, players don't call directors often enough.

[nige1]

Many (including me) are convinced that the nature, and especially the timing of the Spanish complaint are utter bullshit.

OK, on the timing, I cannot argue. I do not play internationally, obviously, but there seems to be strong consensus that the timing and mini-boycott were abnormal. As for the nature, I think that if Spain genuinely believed that there was an infraction, they should report it for further investigation. They could be wrong, if so that will be decided (in fact it was so decided, as I understand). But reporting it at all seems like the proper thing to do, just that they should do so in a more commonly accepted manner.

The Spanish team began to suspect that an American pair had an agreement to open at the one level with illegally weak hands, 3rd in hand, non-vulnerable. If true, this put the Spanish team at a disadvantage because they assiduously complied with the rules. Hence I agree with BillW55 that they had a right to report their allegation. They hastily collated what evidence they could and presented it to officials, well before the start of the session.

 

Refusing to play is a quite different matter but it's normal to report a putative infraction that causes you damage. The latter seems sporting to me although I can imagine circumstances that, arguably, might make a similar action less sporting. An apocryphal account:

 

A young foreign pair, who play Multi, entered a big American tournament. They asked officials for copies of the approved defence to Multi. No copies. They asked if they could print copies from the net. No printer available. They laboriously hand-wrote 2 copies. A pair of seasoned American internationals complained that they couldn't read the defence. The director banned the young pair from playing the convention. The top American pair play Multi themselves. Each had a copy of the official Multi defence. One of them had invented it.

[billw55]

The Spanish team began to suspect that an American pair had an agreement to open at the one level with illegally weak hands, 3rd in hand, non-vulnerable. If true, this put the Spanish team at a disadvantage because they assiduously complied with the rules. Hence I agree with BillW55 that they had a right to report their allegation. They hastily collated what evidence they could and presented it to officials, well before the start of the session.

I think there is a problem even here.

 

During a competition, if Spain feels that USA used a CPU on a particular board and that Spain was damaged, then Spain should call the director after play of that board (or perhaps, that session) and ask for a ruling on that board. That is the extent of what should happen during competition. Large scale complaints based on a collection of deals from prior sessions or events should be advanced outside of competition, IMO.

 

Furthermore, the competitive bridge community as a whole should strive to foster an environment where such concerns can be advanced for fair study, without fear of hostility on all sides. A concern should not automatically be thought of as an accusation, nor be brought as such. The pair under scrutiny should welcome investigation. And third parties on forum sites and elsewhere should not line up to take sides. Behaviors which make the whole situation hostile discourage advancement of concerns to begin with, and thus ultimately promote the hush-hush culture that helped enable actual cheating for so many years, decades even.

 

 

 

[PhantomSac]

I don't think anyone (including myself and my team) is critical of the Spanish team for going to the directors when they viewed there to be an infraction. Does anyone really think that is what the issue is?

[Phil]

I don't think anyone (including myself and my team) is critical of the Spanish team for going to the directors when they viewed there to be an infraction. Does anyone really think that is what the issue is?

 

Not me for sure. The timing of the complaint was bad but pulling players was a joke.

[hrothgar]

An apocryphal account:

 

A young foreign pair, who play Multi, entered a big American tournament. They asked officials for copies of the approved defence to Multi. No copies. They asked if they could print copies from the net. No printer available. They laboriously hand-wrote 2 copies. A pair of seasoned American internationals complained that they couldn't read the defence. The director banned the young pair from playing the convention. The top American pair play Multi themselves. Each had a copy of the official Multi defence. One of them had invented it.

 

Sorry, you say "An apocryphal account"

 

Please explain if this is different than "I am making ***** up"...

[billw55]

I don't think anyone (including myself and my team) is critical of the Spanish team for going to the directors when they viewed there to be an infraction. Does anyone really think that is what the issue is?

Not me for sure. The timing of the complaint was bad but pulling players was a joke.

OK Phil, thanks for clarifying. I had misunderstood your previous statement that "the nature of the complaint is utter bullshit" - I (mistakenly) thought you were referring to the content of the complaint rather than its implementation.

 

Sorry, you say "An apocryphal account"

 

Please explain if this is different than "I am making ***** up"...

To be pedantic, it means that someone else made it up http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif

[Phil]

In my mind, the *nature* of the complaint is different from its *content*.

[nige1]

I think there is a problem even here. During a competition, if Spain feels that USA used a CPU on a particular board and that Spain was damaged, then Spain should call the director after play of that board (or perhaps, that session) and ask for a ruling on that board.

The Spaniards wanted to prevent opponents from playing what they suspected to be an illegal convention. For this allegation, I doubt that the evidence of one board would be enough to persuade the director :)

That is the extent of what should happen during competition. Large scale complaints based on a collection of deals from prior sessions or events should be advanced outside of competition, IMO.

This wasn't an accusation of cheating but the Spaniards felt that they needed to submit a lot of evidence in an attempt to substantiate their allegation. Max Bavin quickly ruled no infraction.

[hrothgar]

To be pedantic, it means that someone else made it up http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif

 

I prefer the following "I am knowingly telling lies"

[hrothgar]

The Spaniards wanted to prevent opponents from playing what they suspected to be an illegal convention. For this allegation, I doubt that the evidence of one board would be enough to persuade the director :) This wasn't an accusation of cheating but the Spaniards felt that they needed to submit a lot of evidence in an attempt to substantiate their allegation.

 

If the Spaniards felt that they needed to submit a lot of evidence then they bloody well should have done so...

 

The quality of the data and the analysis backing their claim was pathetic and discredited their cause.

 

if you are going to pull this sort of shite then you have an obligation to dot your i's and cross your t's

[MrAce]

What shocked me the most was what Mr. Platnick wrote in BW.

 

He said, after they took down -32 imps to -10, he and Mr.Diamond and Oren approached to WBF people to object the decision. They were told that the decision by the committee was final and no appeal was available because there is no superior committee. But when Mr.Platnick mentioned Gonzalo and his pd being taken out from the room, in the middle of a board, the committee member said "What are you talking about? We never heard this!"

So it seems like WBF Committee met in rush due to threads by Spanish team and had to make a decision without even allowing the representatives of teams and without listening to them (Except that Rona spoke to a Spanish player privately, according to Official Spanish Team statement in BW) and without getting the facts straight. They had no clue that one pair of Spanish team started to play a board, but was taken out by their captain in the middle of the auction, and refused to turn back to table despite the TD instructions, according to Mr.Platnick.

 

Now...USA team may not have the right to appeal to the decision of how many imps penalty applies to a protesting team before the match started, but in my opinion they had hell of a right to appeal or make a new complain about leaving an already started match by 1 pair and refusing to turn to table for 30 something minutes. Because they just learned that the committee did not know this fact. Mr. Rona knew it, and he was also in that committee but for some reason he must have kept it to himself only. Or the guy who said "We never heard this" is lying.

 

Assuming that I understood everything Mr.Platnick said accurately, am I wrong to think that USA team had right to request a new decision in the light of facts that were not available in previous meeting?

[nige1]

I prefer the following "I am knowingly telling lies"

If you say so :)

If the Spaniards felt that they needed to submit a lot of evidence then they bloody well should have done so... The quality of the data and the analysis backing their claim was pathetic and discredited their cause.if you are going to pull this sort of shite then you have an obligation to dot your i's and cross your t's

I hope Hrothgar is wrong. My understanding is that when you suspect an infraction by opponents, then you tell the director what you know, but it's the director's job to investigate further, and it is up to him to make a decision on the evidence that he gathers. For example, in this case, Max Bavin investigated and ruled no infraction.

 

Why are so many BBOers obsessed with excrement?:(

[nige1]

Thanks to Google, I found what might be the basis of the story that I heard

Even more recently, in an early round of the 2010 Vanderbilt, a world champion-calibre team was playing a young, unheralded, team. One of the unheralded pairs was playing Multi Two Diamonds, which the ACBL requires of its proponents to supply two copies of the official, standard, ACBL defence for its opponents. The pair had tried to obtain the approved defence from the tournament officials to no avail, so they wrote it out by hand. The first pair they played against on the team unwittingly allowed the transgression after a misunderstanding. The second pair they played against said, "We'll see how it goes," (according to the young pair, but denied by the champions), then called the TD when the young pair opened Two Diamonds later in the set. When the TD arrived, the world champion pair suggested a procedural penalty (again, this version is disputed by the champions) against the young pair. When the youngsters informed the TD that they had a handwritten copy of the defence, the world champion pair questioned its legibility and accuracy. The young pair was eventually informed that they could not play Multi and had now to play weak twos. The world champions' actions in this incident were generally looked upon unfavourably, but not by all.

I had forgotten a long BBO thread on this incident, The laws the law, with more alleged facts gradually revealed as discussion progressed. :(

 

Amusingly, both Hrothgar and I contributed to that thread.:)

[hrothgar]

Thanks to Google, I found what might be the basis of the story that I heard I had forgotten a long BBO thread on this incident, The laws the law, with more alleged facts gradually revealed as discussion progressed. :(

 

Amusingly, both Hrothgar and I contributed to that thread.:)

 

I just reviewed that thread.

 

I am happy to say that the opinions that I ventured then feel consistent with my more recent statements.

 

It is amusing to look at some comments that Fluffy and Jlall made in light of the Wroclaw incident...

[cherdano]

I hope Hrothgar is wrong. My understanding is that when you suspect an infraction by opponents, then you tell the director what you know, but it's the director's job to investigate further, and it is up to him to make a decision on the evidence that he gathers. For example, in this case, Max Bavin investigated and ruled no infraction.

Nigel, we all agree that if you have a suspicion that your opponent (or any other pair) is cheating, then it is fair and right and ethical to privately approach the director and inform him of your thoughts. However, you also have to understand that serious accusation need a serious investigation, and they (the TD director plus whatever committee looks at such infractions) might not be able to come to a decision immediately.

What the Spanish team did was instead was to

- expect an immediate ruling on a complex issue,

- publicly accuse their opponents of cheating, and

- make a big stunt sabotaging the match in order to get their way about an immediate ruling.

 

Meanwhile, even if you view from the most charitable angle for their side, they did so on extremely flimsy evidence. More to the point, they were flat wrong.

 

I think it's telling that almost everyone defending the Spanish team's actions brings up some random action of very different nature by a completely different US pair in the past. I guess you have to believe that there is some permanent unfair war waged by all US players against all European players to justify their actions.

[nige1]

Nigel, we all agree that if you have a suspicion that your opponent (or any other pair) is cheating, then it is fair and right and ethical to privately approach the director and inform him of your thoughts. However, you also have to understand that serious accusation need a serious investigation, and they (the TD director plus whatever committee looks at such infractions) might not be able to come to a decision immediately.

What the Spanish team did was instead was to

- expect an immediate ruling on a complex issue,

- publicly accuse their opponents of cheating, and

- make a big stunt sabotaging the match in order to get their way about an immediate ruling.

 

Meanwhile, even if you view from the most charitable angle for their side, they did so on extremely flimsy evidence. More to the point, they were flat wrong.

 

I think it's telling that almost everyone defending the Spanish team's actions brings up some random action of very different nature by a completely different US pair in the past. I guess you have to believe that there is some permanent unfair war waged by all US players against all European players to justify their actions.

The Spanish captain didn't accuse the Americans of cheating.

 

Fluffy has repeatedly affirmed his respect for the ethical standards of Lall/Bathurst.

 

FWIW, I agree with Fluffy.

 

I don't think that presentation of evidence to the director is gamesmanship. Refusing to play is illegal and might smack of gamesmanship. Even for the latter, however, there are examples of precedents that are more suspect.

 

It's dreadful that so many players regard director calls as an accusation of cheating. IMO, this means director calls are more fraught than they should be.

 

Nevertheless, if my team suspected opponents of unwittingly playing an illegal convention, I would still tell a director in the hope of immediate resolution.

 

What would Cherdano and Hrothgar do?

[cherdano]

The Spanish captain didn't accuse the Americans of cheating. Fluffy has repeatedly affirmed that he has the utmost regard for the ethical standards of Lall/Bathurst. FWIW, I agree with Fluffy.

 

I don't think that presentation of evidence to the director is gamesmanship. Refusing to play is illegal and might smack of gamesmanship but there are examples of precedents that are more suspect.

 

IMO it's dreadful that so many players regard director calls as an accusation of cheating. IMO, this means director calls are more fraught than they should be. Nevertheless, if my team suspected opponents of unwittingly playing an illegal convention, we would still tell a director in the hope of immediate resolution.

 

Nigel, if a pair agrees to open every hand non-vulnerable 3rd seat, and decides not to inform the opponents about that agreement, then this is an intentional serious infraction of both the letter and the spirit of the bridge laws in order to gain an advantage. Intentionally committing a serious infraction of rules in order to gain an advantage is cheating.

 

In order to convince himself that his team wasn't accusing Justin and Kevin of cheating, Gonzalo had to come up with the idea that they unconsciously developed this agreement. This doesn't pass the laugh test for a pair at their level. They are a partnership with a lot of experience playing together, and are very much aware of each others tendencies. They know each other's tendency extremely well in auctions that are much much rarer than "non-vulnerable third seat".

This explanation is just something Gonzalo came up with in order to tell himself that his team wasn't actually accusing Justin and Kevin of cheating. That's part of his behaviour that I find so disappointing - he should know better than this. And he still doesn't know better, apparently.

[nige1]

Nigel, if a pair agrees to open every hand non-vulnerable 3rd seat, and decides not to inform the opponents about that agreement, then this is an intentional serious infraction of both the letter and the spirit of the bridge laws in order to gain an advantage. Intentionally committing a serious infraction of rules in order to gain an advantage is cheating.

 

In order to convince himself that his team wasn't accusing Justin and Kevin of cheating, Gonzalo had to come up with the idea that they unconsciously developed this agreement. This doesn't pass the laugh test for a pair at their level. They are a partnership with a lot of experience playing together, and are very much aware of each others tendencies. They know each other's tendency extremely well in auctions that are much much rarer than "non-vulnerable third seat".

This explanation is just something Gonzalo came up with in order to tell himself that his team wasn't actually accusing Justin and Kevin of cheating. That's part of his behaviour that I find so disappointing - he should know better than this. And he still doesn't know better, apparently.

I'm not a mind-reader but I feel that Fluffy is telling the truth.

 

Cherdano's other mind-reading assertions seem equally unlikely. Top players

• Expressed surprise about the existence of WBF strength restrictions on opening bids,
• Protested that the regulations are ridiculous and unenforceable.
• Admitted that they often open ultra-light, 3rd in hand.
• Claimed that doing so is just Bridge.
• Pointed out that psyches are perfectly legal.
• Explained that opportunities are too infrequent to create an implicit understanding.

I accept that the American team are likely to know the rules but I feel that any pair, even a top pair, can develop unconscious understandings. My guess is that is what the Spaniards suspected.

 

In the Spanish hand-sample, the Americans always opened, 3d in hand, non-vulnerable. You might still have a relevant illegal agreement, however, even if you don't open every hand non-vulnerable 3rd seat,

 

Amusingly, in BW threads, other internationals not only admit that they deliberately break the law but they also accuse opponents who call the director of despicable and unsporting gamesmanship. For example see threads on claiming without explanation.

[hrothgar]

 

I accept that the American team are likely to know the rules but I feel that any pair, even a top pair, can develop unconscious understandings. My guess is that is what the Spaniards suspected.

 

 

All fine and dandy, but the Spaniards did a piss poor job making their case...

 

This is what I object to.

If you are going to do something like this, you need to dot your i's and cross your t's.

 

The claims that the Spaniards made really hurt their credibility.

[hrothgar]

I'm not a mind-reader but I feel that Fluffy is telling the truth.

 

Top players

• Expressed surprise about the existence of WBF strength restrictions on opening bids,
• Protested that the regulations are ridiculous and unenforceable.
• Admitted that they often open ultra-light, 3rd in hand.
• Claimed that doing so is just Bridge.
• Pointed out that psyches are perfectly legal.
• Explained that opportunities are too infrequent to create an implicit understanding.

 

At best, this seems to be a fuzzy area with a lot of room for improvement.

[Fluffy]

What the Spanish team did was instead was to

- expect an immediate ruling on a complex issue,

I am not certain here, but I think we expected an investigation in the 90 minutes that were given to directors. I don't know the exact exchange between my team and directors but from the official statement it transpires that what we got did not fulfill our expectations... because they did nothing at all.

- publicly accuse their opponents of cheating, and

You need to define publically, AFAIK it was Oren who publically said something, not us. Not that it mattered at that point really, but I think it is obvious we didn't want things to go this way. About accusing, or claiming, we could never allegue anything about anyone, but if we could it would not be "cheating". On BW Brogeland related how Meckstroth accused him of playing ilegal methods or lack of disclosure because their 2-way 2/1 responses were not listed on special bids that might require a defence. Meckstroth got away with it, but do you think he accused him of cheating?

- make a big stunt sabotaging the match in order to get their way about an immediate ruling.

There was no stunt, we just retired, for some reason that is still unclear to me they didn't want us to, and we didn't retire in the end, but I can assure you when I stood from the table that I was determined to leave.

[hrothgar]

On BW Brogeland related how Meckstroth accused him of playing ilegal methods or lack of disclosure because their 2-way 2/1 responses were not listed on special bids that might require a defence. Meckstroth got away with it, but do you think he accused him of cheating?

 

Fluffy,

 

I have long maintained that the games that Meckstroth play are perfectly legal.

I have also defended the actions that the Spanish team took as being legal (if ill advised)

 

Moreover, I strongly believe that it is a mistake to conflate personal aesthetics with regulations and that the written rules are what matter.

 

With all this said and done, on a more personal level, I think that you could chose a better role model than Meckstroth....

 

(And, of course, anyone with half a brain should be personally embarrassed by the piss poor quality of the "analysis" that your team submitted)