Cheating allegations

[sfi]

I don't imagine there are very many households with multiple IP addresses, save on their own internal networks.

Running the internet off your phone is one way to do it. VPN is another. Both of these are quite common options.

[blackshoe]

It certainly can be done. Doesn't mean it's common.

[pran]

It certainly can be done. Doesn't mean it's common.

Cheating is not common.

That doesn't mean it doesn't occur, and "opportunity creates villains".

[pilowsky]

Cheating is not common.

That doesn't mean it doesn't occur, and "opportunity creates villains".

 

What is your evidence that "cheating is not common"?

 

People seem capable of 'stealing' anything. The smaller the stakes, the meaner they get and the more pathetic the rationalisations become.

I was tired.

I was bored

I don't know what came over me

I was sad

My child wanted me to do it

My mother is dying of cancer

I had an argument with my dog

etc etc etc

 

Of course, people cheat. The internet just makes it possible in new ways.

 

If you want a good laugh google James Randi

[pran]

What is your evidence that "cheating is not common"?

My own experience from the various events in which I have participated since I first learned about Bridge around 1947.

 

But I must add that I have little experience from events like national and international top level championships, however I believe that I share this lack of experience with a majority of bridge players around the world?

[mycroft]

Frequency x Damage = Risk.

 

Cheating isn't common. We likely aren't even at 1% of players who deliberately, actively intend to violate the rules of the game for personal benefit. I would have put it lower than that, but unfortunately at least at the highest levels, I've been proven wrong.

 

The damage from cheating is very very high - much higher than I would have expected it would be. In the paid world, of course, it fractures the entire platform paid bridge is built on. In you-and-me land, it erodes confidence in everybody, and people stop playing if they think they're being cheated. It also induces paranoia, where every bad bridge action that works stops being "but it's not fair that novices get a good score against *me* by bidding like fish" and starts becoming "they must have a wire, nobody bids like that without one". Which, when not quashed, and even when quashed, still leaks out in the after-game conversations, and the implication that there's more cheating going on than actually is also counts as damage.

 

The other damage to me is that it drowns out the garbage that happens everywhere, where people are getting stolen blind by tempo nonsense, the interested question, "you're right, partner, I forgot we don't play that, I need to try to survive now", "oh you forgot Drury, I'm going to have to rebid the suit so you get it", and all the rest of the stuff that people literally don't realize they're doing and even if they did realize it, don't realize how illegal it is (after all, they just "do what they would always have done").

 

Therefore, even with cheating not being common, the risk cheating in bridge brings to the future of bridge is still high, and we should deal with it. But part of "dealing with it" is downplaying the hype, while still acknowledge that there's some "there" there.

[pilowsky]

My own experience from the various events in which I have participated since I first learned about Bridge around 1947.

 

But I must add that I have little experience from events like national and international top level championships, however I believe that I share this lack of experience with a majority of bridge players around the world?

 

Then you are doing something called "arguing from anecdote" and your comment should be ignored.

It makes no difference how long you have been playing, where, or with whom.

 

Your experience or abilities give you no insight at all into the exact number of or proportion of people that may be cheating at any one time.

 

That would be like saying "shoplifting doesn't occur", or "people don't cross the road when they shouldn't".

How about, this one. "even though I know experts have told me it will save lives if people wear masks I'm not going to". (to paraphrase the philosophy of a segment of the Republican party in the USA)

 

Ethics is a tricky business, isn't it!

[blackshoe]

(to paraphrase the philosophy of a segment of the Republican party in the USA)

 

Ethics is a tricky business, isn't it!

Yeah. So maybe you shouldn't lay that "philosophy" on "a segment of the Republican Party".

[nige1]

Frequency x Damage = Risk.

Cheating isn't common. We likely aren't even at 1% of players who deliberately, actively intend to violate the rules of the game for personal benefit. I would have put it lower than that, but unfortunately at least at the highest levels, I've been proven wrong. ...

At International level, convicted cheats have won many recent championships. If we believe world-class Americans, the Italian Blue Team cheated their way to a long run of World Championships. Presumably there are many less skilful cheats.

... The other damage to me is that it drowns out the garbage that happens everywhere, where people are getting stolen blind by tempo nonsense, the interested question, "you're right, partner, I forgot we don't play that, I need to try to survive now", "oh you forgot Drury, I'm going to have to rebid the suit so you get it", and all the rest of the stuff that people literally don't realize they're doing and even if they did realize it, don't realize how illegal it is (after all, they just "do what they would always have done").

Mycroft points out that many ordinary players use UI. Only a mind-reader can tell whether such law-breaking is cheating, stupidity or ignorance, At the lowest levels, perhaps the problem isn't deliberate cheating --- just widespread indiscriminate, careless, and wanton law-breaking. Perhaps players are adept at rationalising their peccadillos. Perhaps they are unaware of what they're doing. Perhaps they don't understand the rules. Perhaps adverse rulings are so rare, penalties so paltry, and redress so inadequate, that players can't imagine the law-makers want their rules to be taken seriously.

 

This unhappy state of affairs will persist until law-makers simplify/clarify/unify the rules, abandoning "equity", in favour of deterrence; and directors start to enforce the rules, proactively.

Therefore, even with cheating not being common, the risk cheating in bridge brings to the future of bridge is still high, and we should deal with it. But part of "dealing with it" is downplaying the hype, while still acknowledge that there's some "there" there.

Top level cheating seems common. In an attempt to restore the probity of Bridge, the WBF and NBOs belatedly need to assume their responsibilities i.e.

• Investigate and prosecute alleged cheats, in a fair and transparent way;
• Name and shame convicted cheats and confiscate their ill-gotten gains;
• Reallocate their titles and placings to those whom they robbed.

[pilowsky]

Yeah. So maybe you shouldn't lay that "philosophy" on "a segment of the Republican Party".

 

Would you like to expand? There may be others that are not members of that particular 'segment of the Republican Party of the USA' that also subscribe to that idea of not wearing masks at appropriate times, my point is non-exclusive.

[johnu]

Yeah. So maybe you shouldn't lay that "philosophy" on "a segment of the Republican Party".

92% of Democrats or lean Democrat says they usually wear a mask in stores or businesses. 76% of Republicans or lean Republican say the same. In many states and local areas, masks are required so if you want entry, you have to wear a mask. That increases the number of people who say they wear masks by an unknown percentage. What can be said is that there is large difference in the percentage of mask wearers by party.

 

More Americans say they are regularly wearing masks in stores and other businesses

[pilowsky]

In other words, AT LEAST 92/76 *100 = 20% more Democrats than Republicans are in favour of masks from that single study.

Interestingly, it does not say anything about the proportion (segment) of the Republican Party that is or isn't in favour (sic, excuse my non-American spelling).

[nige1]

This Guardian article about cheating at Chess has been quoted several times on BridgeWinners. Sophisticated surveillance with computer analysis by Prof Kenneth Regan, shows that thousands of chess-players suddenly surpassed Carlson (or, more likely, started cheating).

 

Similar to the recent BBO scandal, where Nicolas Hammond's clever statistical analysis revealed dozens of suspect on-line cheats in recent top-level competition.

 

Some of the latter suspects confessed to the ACBL and EBU. But also included in Hammond's group are world-champions and senior tournament directors. Apparently (in contrast to Chess's FIDE), Bridge's WBF and NBOs are reluctant to grasp this hot potato. A pity, because top-level alleged cheats have hired lawyers. Some can enjoy the opportunity to hone their techniques, with relative impunity.

 

Encouraged by official apathy, effective cheating is likely to become the key Bridge-skill. :(

Worse -- perhaps it always has been :(

[mycroft]

"dozens". "A few".

 

Sure, those are only the ones that are reported and investigated, but there are what, 10 000 players on BBO right now? And maybe 30 000 daily players?

 

The paranoia being generated is much worse than the actual cheating.

 

If you listen to "some Americans", *every* non-American team that has won a world championship was cheating. And a couple of the US teams that beat "some Americans", too. There is an alternative explanation for this, even if there was (or still is!) a lot of cheating going on.

 

And yes. I'm saying that players don't know their legal requirements (and therefore their opponents' legal requirements), and as a result, there's an awful lot of non-wilful, non-deliberate irregularities. Much of that is *education*, not enforcement. Players don't know, and we don't care to educate. "Some Americans" are proud of not knowing the Laws, and some of them are proud of "doing what they think is right" over following the Law. Not to denigrate those people, whose judgement and bridge skill is high enough that they probably are right, but there aren't many people I would put in that class, and the leaders doing it - and publicising that they do it - encourages the people who listen to or read them to do the same thing. With their less-refined judgement and lower skill, they are less likely to be "right". And the newer players learn from these people...

 

And the paranoia about the C-word is overshadowing any effort going into fixing this - and in fact an awful lot of "random use of UI" is being reported as "they must have a wire" or "they're deliberately passing and using information with their tempo". Which was my previous point; yes, we do have to work on actual cheating, but we really have to work on teaching people what they and their opponents shouldn't be doing. If for no other reason than "we can't call it cheating if you didn't know. Guess what? Now you know."...

[blackshoe]

This is not the place to discuss politics.

[pescetom]

And yes. I'm saying that players don't know their legal requirements (and therefore their opponents' legal requirements), and as a result, there's an awful lot of non-wilful, non-deliberate irregularities. Much of that is *education*, not enforcement.

 

Enforcement is highly educative. Penalise wrong doings and you can bet that if they didn't know before they will the next time. That's how it works in most other sports and indeed in life.

[pilowsky]

The problem is that the word 'fair' has very different meanings to different people.

[thepossum]

Other above have made parallels (in a different way) to public health and potential voerreach into people's lives.

 

I have serious concerns about how blase some people are in this thread to some of the potential endpoints or consequences of such surveillance

 

Just as an example. They are currently trialing sewage testing for Covid and then testing whole suburbs based on fragments of viral material in sewage. I know others have discussed concerns about checking bridge players for substance use while playing. I'm sure everyone here is smart enough for these issues not to need be spelled out. And I seriously hope in the braoder scheme there aren't any Nazi-types here.

 

Also in trying to catch a few high-level rogues who would be challened and identified and have due process through normal channels, they run the risk of mass sweeps of millions of harmless people who dont always follow tournament level restrictions

 

Are people going to get a midnight knock on the door for psyching a bot or playing under the influence of something

 

Other parallels are the overeach of commercialism into our lives where our faces are scanned as we walk around the streets to bombard us with mood related ads.

 

How far and how specific and how local is this intrusion into every aspect of our private lives going to go before people start asking a few questions.

 

I've been so concerned about the way the world is going these days, I never use my computer unless I have a wall behind me, although who knows what technology they have for seeing through walls. But then again the main surveillance opportunities are out there on a clouds and webservices these days, or our hardware devices. I've been rather suspicious of strange behaviour from my touchpad and keyboard recently - and I have behaved for many years (even decades) assuming every mousclick, key press was being tracked by somebody somewhere :)

 

And without wanting to reference any specific play-surveillance analytics my Bridge is and never has been at a level to maintain a consistent error rate - its different levels of high :)

 

Oh dear, we have found that you were under observation for something else and someone has long distance camera footage of you doing something you shouldnt during an online Bridge match :)

 

I must admit, until recently, I never thought that world Bridge authorities would become an area of concern in relation to privacy, surveillance and intrusion into our lives. I regret ever laying myself open by joining BBO and the ACBL. Looks anxiously out of window at distant high-rise with line of sight

[hrothgar]

They are currently trialing sewage testing for Covid

 

Yes

 

They are doing this in Massachusetts

I could not be happier.

[pilowsky]

Other above have made parallels (in a different way) to public health and potential voerreach into people's lives.

 

I have serious concerns about how blase some people are in this thread to some of the potential endpoints or consequences of such surveillance

 

Just as an example. They are currently trialing sewage testing for Covid and then testing whole suburbs based on fragments of viral material in sewage. I know others have discussed concerns about checking bridge players for substance use while playing. I'm sure everyone here is smart enough for these issues not to need be spelled out. And I seriously hope in the braoder scheme there aren't any Nazi-types here.

 

Also in trying to catch a few high-level rogues who would be challened and identified and have due process through normal channels, they run the risk of mass sweeps of millions of harmless people who dont always follow tournament level restrictions

 

Are people going to get a midnight knock on the door for psyching a bot or playing under the influence of something

 

Other parallels are the overeach of commercialism into our lives where our faces are scanned as we walk around the streets to bombard us with mood related ads.

 

How far and how specific and how local is this intrusion into every aspect of our private lives going to go before people start asking a few questions.

 

I've been so concerned about the way the world is going these days, I never use my computer unless I have a wall behind me, although who knows what technology they have for seeing through walls. But then again the main surveillance opportunities are out there on a clouds and webservices these days, or our hardware devices. I've ben rather suspicious of strange behaviour from my touchpad and keyboard recently :)

 

And without wanting to reference any specific play-surveillance analytics my Bridge is and never has been at a level to maintain a consistent error rate - its different levels of high :)

 

Oh dear, we have found that you were under observation for something else and someone has long distance camera footage of you doing something you shouldnt during an online Bridge match :)

 

I must admit, until recently, I never thought that world Bridge authorities would become an area of concern in relation to privacy, surveillance and intrusion into our lives. I regret ever laying myself open by joining BBO and the ACBL. Looks anxiously out of window at distant high-rise with line of sight

 

I really don't think you need to be concerned. Whoever 'they' are, they are unlikely to be too worried about you and me.

To them, we are just like the flies in William Blakes poem.

 

Am not I A fly like thee?

Or art not thou A man like me?

For I dance, And drink, and sing,

Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life And strength and breath,

And the want Of thought is death;

Then am I A happy fly.

Of no consequence at all. Not worth the bother.

[thepossum]

I really don't think you need to be concerned. Whoever 'they' are, they are unlikely to be too worried about you and me.

To them, we are just like the flies in William Blakes poem.

 

Am not I A fly like thee?

Or art not thou A man like me?

For I dance, And drink, and sing,

Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life And strength and breath,

And the want Of thought is death;

Then am I A happy fly.

Of no consequence at all. Not worth the bother.

 

 

I am assuming that I am irrelevant. But who knows they may be looking for any scalps for our misdemeanours, no matter how trivial and insignificant

 

EDIT - apologies for edits - turned into one of my usual edited rambles

[thepossum]

Yes

 

They are doing this in Massachusetts

I could not be happier.

 

Its fine as far as it goes. I'm just thinking, as always, of potential overreach of any technology

[pilowsky]

I am assuming that I am irrelevant. But who knows they may be looking for any scalps for our misdemeanours, no matter how trivial and insignificant

 

Well, we've made it this far, let's keep on truckin'.

[thepossum]

Well, we've made it this far, let's keep on truckin'.

 

I think, with apologies to Nic Hammond for any misrepresentation of his methods, he would need a very specific (and different) test for my bridge playing. Rather than error rate, it could be trying to detect when I do something right, or consistently right more than once or twice :)

 

EDIT I deleted a later post/dislaimer or statement of interest or in this issue disinterest. My concerns are much broader and belong in the Water Cooler, and relate to serious concerns I have over the intrusion of all things tech and analytic into every area of our lives. I will leave Bridge stuff to those who are seriously interested and impacted by this issue. Apologies for getting too involved

[nige1]

"dozens". "A few". Sure, those are only the ones that are reported and investigated, but there are what, 10 000 players on BBO right now? And maybe 30 000 daily players?

 

The paranoia being generated is much worse than the actual cheating.

 

If you listen to "some Americans", *every* non-American team that has won a world championship was cheating. And a couple of the US teams that beat "some Americans", too. There is an alternative explanation for this, even if there was (or still is!) a lot of cheating going on.

 

And yes. I'm saying that players don't know their legal requirements (and therefore their opponents' legal requirements), and as a result, there's an awful lot of non-wilful, non-deliberate irregularities. Much of that is *education*, not enforcement. Players don't know, and we don't care to educate. "Some Americans" are proud of not knowing the Laws, and some of them are proud of "doing what they think is right" over following the Law. Not to denigrate those people, whose judgement and bridge skill is high enough that they probably are right, but there aren't many people I would put in that class, and the leaders doing it - and publicising that they do it - encourages the people who listen to or read them to do the same thing. With their less-refined judgement and lower skill, they are less likely to be "right". And the newer players learn from these people...

 

And the paranoia about the C-word is overshadowing any effort going into fixing this - and in fact an awful lot of "random use of UI" is being reported as "they must have a wire" or "they're deliberately passing and using information with their tempo". Which was my previous point; yes, we do have to work on actual cheating, but we really have to work on teaching people what they and their opponents shouldn't be doing. If for no other reason than "we can't call it cheating if you didn't know. Guess what? Now you know."...

Nicolas Hammond agrees with Mycroft. His analysis shows that as few as 1-5% of ordinary BBO players cheat (although, in absolute numbers, that's a lot of players).

 

Currently, the CAT has reported 30-50 top-level alleged on-line cheats to those who run a few high-level on-line competitions.

 

At the world-class level, over the past 60 years, Nicolas Hammond's computer analysis of records shows that a few (but not all) Italian pairs cheated. Also, there were many cheating pairs from America, Britain, and other countries.

 

Even a few cheats wreck competition. Convicted cheats have won several world-championships. Suspected cheats have won more. Even when they don't win themselves, cheats eliminate other potential winners.

 

Currently in spite of their obsession with so-called "Equity", the WBF and NBOs have provided scant redress to victims of convicted cheats. Victims should be moved up the ranking lists to be awarded the places and titles, of which they were robbed by cheats. Unfortunately such a process can be crude and messy (e.g. in KO events).

But organisations should attempt to award victims some relief from damage.

 

MI and UI infractions are rife but I agree with Mycroft that it's wrong to blame ordinary players for carelessly flouting bridge rules. Also, judging from the the rarity of PPs and DPs, it seems nearly impossible to judge that such infractions are deliberate.

 

Bridge laws and regulations are so complex, subjective, and fragmented that few players read, understand, or comply with them. Another consequence is that, even in the simplest cases, with agreed facts, top directors disagree about rulings.

 

It would be harder to rationalize cheating if Bridge-rules were unified, simplified, and made less subjective :) The game would also be more fun :)