Rise (??) in cheating recently

[inquiry]

I think you ought to withdraw your report to abuse-institution Ben. The case is too poor.

Claus,

 

First, I didn't report it. When I saw the hand, having seen the hand for myself, I know who the players were and I know that it was reported by someone else.

 

Second, reporting a hand does not mean the person report is quilty of anything. They may have a great explaination why they bid like they did. Cooler heads than mine make the decision on that point. If you will notice, I even allowed as they may have an explaination... I think misclick can hardly be it however. You do realize that it was EAST not west who overcalled 1♠, it was EAST not west who jumped to 4NT, and it was EAST, not west that bid the grand slam after forcing the auction to the six level all by himself.

 

Third, I understand "reports" of cheating maybe nothing more than the reporters poor understanding of bridge logic or system played by his/her oppenents. In this case, no harm is done. I am sure uday or his representative is going to use a very high standard for deciding a case against a person who is reported. In fact, who knows, the EAST on this hand may have had an believable explaination and nothing comes of it. Or, maybe he had a case of pseudo-innocent unintentional unathorized information and his spirits got the better of him, and a simple warning to cut this out will do. Or maybe this is the 10th or 12th magic hand that has been report for this same person, and he has been warned two or three other times. The facts are, I have no idea if this was an offense, and if it was if it was a second, third or 10th. I would simply report it and move on.

 

Don't report them if you don't want to Claus. Until I saw this one, I only reported one player and I did that because two different people playing in a tournment I was directing told me he was "cheating". After looking at the hands, I thought they might be right. However, I believe that guy must have been either exonerated or simply warned becasue as far as I can see he was never banned, but looking at his latest play, I no longer find anything remotely suspecious in his play. Bottom line, if he wasn't cheating, my reporting him only to abuse@bridgebase.com did him no harm (I have never told ANYONE else his name), and if he was cheating maybe a warning from uday was enough to get him to stop.

 

I now will take the opposite track. I will not go out of my way looking for someone to report, but if I see it and it is blantant, I will report it.

 

Ben

[csdenmark]

Raise from 6 to 7 makes good sense with missing the CUE for the ace. I think only problem is 4NT which I would bid either 3♥ or 4♠ - maybe a 4♥-CUE. To me it mostly looks like a misclick - and as informed it was in a tourney - most of those disallows UNDO.

 

Ben - right to report anytime needed I think!

[uday]

I happen to find this bidding in need of an explanation. As usual in cases like this ( and it takes something like this - a sequence which almost everyone would , IMO, find implausible ), I suspend the users and await an explanation (via an email dialogue w/abuse@bridgebase.com)

 

I agree that suspect hands should be emailed to abuse@ along with a link, preferably, and preferably without expecting a response.

[csdenmark]

I happen to find this bidding in need of an explanation.  As usual in cases like this ( and it takes something like this - a sequence which almost everyone would , IMO, find implausible ),  I suspend the users and await an explanation (via an email dialogue w/abuse@bridgebase.com)

 

I agree that suspect hands should be emailed to abuse@ along with a link, preferably, and preferably without expecting a response.

Uday I think you are going wrong trying to pursue bidding sequenses. I think you will be right pursuing misconduct and making harm to others. This case mentioned by Ben has harmed nobody. - It looks to me just as a poor case similar to see the reason for intentionally disconnections by looking into scoring. - As Gerardo reported the Yellow ones dont use scoring as an evidence for intension so also bidding, even strange bidding, ought to be a private matter for the pair. They have an obligation to explain - but thats another story.

 

This case here harms nothing and nobody.

[helium]

I happen to find this bidding in need of an explanation.  As usual in cases like this ( and it takes something like this - a sequence which almost everyone would , IMO, find implausible ),  I suspend the users and await an explanation (via an email dialogue w/abuse@bridgebase.com)

 

I agree that suspect hands should be emailed to abuse@ along with a link, preferably, and preferably without expecting a response.

Uday I think you are going wrong trying to pursue bidding sequenses. I think you will be right pursuing misconduct and making harm to others. This case mentioned by Ben has harmed nobody. - It looks to me just as a poor case similar to see the reason for intentionally disconnections by looking into scoring. - As Gerardo reported the Yellow ones dont use scoring as an evidence for intension so also bidding, even strange bidding, ought to be a private matter for the pair. They have an obligation to explain - but thats another story.

 

This case here harms nothing and nobody.

how can u say that? offcourse it harms someone, everybody how played in that tourney foresure, they got a score they never should have. and it harms everyone who plays on boo, i know many players who dont play tourneys anymore couse of this,instead they only play teams whit players they know.

So to say that cheeting dont harm Bridge is just silly.

 

kenneth

[luke warm]

FWIW I use all those products... I have never had an infection in all the years I've used Zone alarm and AVG (grisofts antivirus program).

 

I have used Norton and McAfee antivirus programs in the past and have found that AVG catches more than either of them AND IT IS FREE.

 

Matter of fact, caught an email bug this morning.

i use all of those also, as well as adaware (it's a decent program that catches a lot of things that slip thru the crack)

 

i kinda agree with richard, in that i don't waste a lot of time worrying about people cheating... they either will or they won't, and i doubt i can do anything about it... besides, i have too much to worry about with truscott 2♦ and spiral scan

[csdenmark]

how can u say that? offcourse it harms someone, everybody how played in that tourney foresure, they got a score they never should have. and it harms everyone who plays on boo, i know many players who dont play tourneys anymore couse of this,instead they only play teams whit players they know.

So to say that cheeting dont harm Bridge is just silly.

 

There are so many tournaments and really many with no serious set-up.

Tournaments are just an alternative set-up of social bridge play. If the tournaments was meant as serious competition you would see important features implemented for that. Those are missing today.

 

All those many persons just jumping from one tourney into another one dont take them as a serious contests. Kenneth I am very sorry if you think they are more serious than other players think.

[helium]

I dont take it more serius than a robbergame whit friends,

But i have to say its sad to read ur post clas,i really hope u have more respekt for the game and bbo than it souned like in ur post,its thinking like that that ruin this game,

its sounds like you have no etichs att all.

sad really sad

 

kenneth

[the hog]

Kenneth,

Claus is not saying that cheating doesn't harm bridge. He is saying "what does it matter if some petty sad individual has to boost his own ego by getting a good result". I for one happen to agree with him. Really does your life depend on it; is it life threatening; will you not gain National representation because of it? Surely we all have more important things to worry about in this world than some sad individual. To say Claus really "has no ethics at all" is a very insulting comment.

[helium]

no i think u missunderstod me, i dint say clas dint have etich but when he say that no one got harmed in the spesiffikk exsample is sad to hear.

dint not mean to insult anyone, and i apologise if it soundet insulting.

 

kenneth

[the hog]

dint not mean to insult anyone, and i apologise if it soundet insulting.

 

No problems. Misunderstanding all round.

Ron

[spwdo]

hi,

 

 

maybe a possibilty in the set-up(format) to allow " kibits on partner only" when dummy en then combined with kibitzers not allowed woud be a way to at least have a possibilty to host tourneys were it woud be less likely to play unethical in,Nothing is waterproof off course but this coud be a first step in making it harder to cheat. Maybe im wrong and it doesnt help also, i dont know.must confess i havent given this much thought while i believe that all this thinking , talking about cheating encourages the not that confident people to go "protect"themselves against "all this cheating" by doing it themselves. I get great proud feelings when i get a positife score in i field that by far outreache me in playing skills, when i come in with a score below average im only looking more at movies and travellers to see where i went wrong or where to do better. this weeks abalucys game i came and incredible(for my standards) 4the place(should have won wasnt that i bid and played a very bad 3nt-4), a "friendly"kibitzer( like someone said it) there woud have made victory very reacheble but at what cost? seeing my name on top and taking away my pleasure,proudness and "yessssssssss" feeling that i had with my fair fourth place just doesnt seem worth it

 

marc

[csdenmark]

What is bridge? The ability for one person to communicate precisely with another person using 37 commands for deciding which of millions of combinations of the 52 cards which are on the run this time. The quality of your system and yourself to master this is what to be meassured. - As all too many just play private systems/interpretations with insufficient definitions they will just miss the point of bridge. - Fascinating I think!

 

This also means - cheaters can only ruin the fun for themselves - not for others.

 

In the example Ben has mentioned - an accusation for cheating makes no sense. If they really wanted to cheat - they would of course see to that everything looks like normal standard. This means CUE or asking from the strong hand which here clearly will be able to count a slam. Therefore I cannot see it in any other way than those who likes to see the '4NT' bid as cheating are just seeing ghosts in daylight.

 

I like to see actions to be taken against those who are spoiling my fun of the game. That is those who cannot master their own system and those who are leaving the game. To leave a table sucking into a tournament is a major violation and by no means it differs from those just leaving the table for no reason at all.

 

Dealing with rules the word 'consequence' is a crucial word. Arbitrarian decisions are unacceptable!

[uday]

There is plenty of merit in CSDenmark's positon. But I think that cheaters also spoil the fun for others. A risky systemic preempt that cannot succeed because the opps know both hands is no fun. You can't find out if your system is working or not working. Deceptive plays or bids , psychics, nothing affects the result on most hands (result is now predetermined by the cheaters ideas of what is correct on each hand)

 

So cheaters are definitely members of the class of people that spoil the fun for others.

[kleek]

Thank you all for your various statements regarding online cheating. Everybody is entitled to their own views on the subject, and this variety of views is what makes the Bridge Base Forum so valuable to the online bridge community.

 

I recently struck up a casual partnership here at BBO with a 13-year-old novice who is very intent on learning to play bridge. The last time I got to play with this person, there was only time to play a few hands, so we opened a table in the Main Bridge Club. Before relating the particulars of what happened, I would like to say first that it was obvious to me that our opponents were not novices or beginners. In fact, it appeared to me that they had considerable experience playing bridge, which made what I am about to describe seem all the more bizarre to me.

 

The first hand that got my suspicion aroused was when one of the opponents opened a weak 2S on basically King sixth and out, and his partner (playing IMP's please keep in mind!) competed to 3S with a singleton spot spade and a number of, as it turned out, well-positioned cards. We took the push to the 4-level, got doubled, and got a very bad result. It struck me as very odd, to say the least, that someone would attempt to "push" us up a level with a rather non-descript hand containing only a singleton spade and a not overwhelming number of HCP. After reviewing the lie of all of the cards, I realized that this rather absurdly and dangerously bid 3S contract (missing AQJ10xx in spades) was cold on any defense. Among other well-positioned cards, the outstanding spades were split 3-3, with the AQJ onside, holding their spade losers to two. Hmmm...the opponent's bid seems to have been unusually lucky and safe, doesn't it? But they were just warming up.

 

A couple of hands later, my RHO this time overcalled a weak 2S, and my partner and I overbid to the 5-level for another bad result, which we fairly earned and deserved. What I found to be somewhat odd about this hand, after reviewing the position of the cards, was that the person who overcalled 2S held Q109, xxx, xxx, xxxx AND that his partner, over a 3H call by me, NEVER did anything but PASS for the entire auction, holding Kxxxx, Ax, xx, Axxx! Would any of you pass a 2S overcall by partner holding this hand? Well, they weren't in too much trouble in 2S, were they? Odd, to say the least.

 

The final insult came when my partner and I bid unopposed to 6NT, and my LHO, out of the clear blue sky, doubled us. As it turned out, there was no way to make 6NT on any lead, and once again we had earned our bad result, but the double had piqued my interest. The person who doubled 6NT held xx, Qxxxx, x, Qxxxx. Now, with the opponents freely bidding unopposed to 6NT, does this look like a penalty double of 6NT to any of you? But, alas, 6NT had no play. Seem a little strange?

 

Now I can handle playing against the occasional cheater(s), even when it is as blatantly obvious as in the above examples. I will simply add those opponents' names to my growing group of black-listed names of players that I will never again knowingly play against in the future. But what lessons do you think that my novice partner came away from the table with? When people are first learning to play, they can be semi-isolated in novice and beginner games, but when certain beginners seem to show some promise, we encourage them to get out there and play against the "better" players. We claim that this is the best, and the fastest, road to learning more about the game and improving one's skills. In this kind of environment, is it really?

 

I suppose you can count me among the group that thinks every reasonable effort should be made by everyone to rid the online bridge community of those players who feel it necessary (and enjoyable) to cheat at the game. Although the growth and success of online bridge may ultimately prove to be the salvation of the game we all enjoy so much, if there is one issue that could foreshadow its failure, it is how well or poorly it does in handling the ethics/cheating problems. They should not be ignored.

[Cascade]

Kurt your signature is ironical given the nature of your post.

 

I would have thought you should play fairly when you have losing cards.

[keylime]

Kurt,

 

Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. And, ditto.

[kleek]

Wayne/Cascade:

 

I'm sorry that you don't understand the meaning of the word irony (a figure of speech in which the literal meaning of a locution is the opposite of that intended...employed playfully) or appreciate the dry wit of Oscar Wilde. Lest some reader of my post get the wrong impression or take offense, I will immediately remove the Wilde quotation from the area below my closing signature.

 

I ALWAYS play fairly, whatever cards I'm dealt, and would never suggest that anyone else should do otherwise, despite what you implied by your comment.

 

What I find more interesting is that, after your having apparently read my post, the only thing you could find to make a comment about was the (intended as) humorous quotation below my name. This seems to be the fairly typical reaction of the yellows and administrators of BBO to any reasonable discussion of this subject, i.e., if possible, ignore it.

 

Ignore it, say as little as possible, do as little as possible, and try to hush up anybody who speaks out on the issue with your explicit and implied "warnings". Isn't this the real, unstated policy at BBO?

[inquiry]

I am glad kurt has agreed with my view that cheating should not be ignored anymore in the BBO by the players. I am sorry his view is that yellows and administrators ignore the problem. But the truth of the matter is it takes a lot of man-hours to investigate alleged cheating, the evidence isn't allways that clear cut, and the safest view is to assume innocent until proven guilty.

 

Let's take your examples, kurt, as how an investigation might go. First, is opening 2♠ on "basically King sixth and out?" strongly, or even weakly indicative of cheating? The hand in question is far from being a cheating one, in fact, it suggest the possibility that they were not cheating. First 6 out of 16 players opened that hand 2♠. Second, they are laydown for 4♥, and were going to languish in 2♠ or 3♠, and third 3♠ is down on a ♥ lead as your side scores 2♠+ 1♥ ruff, 1♦ and 1♣. And something you forgot to mention, is that the hand with a singleton ♠ had not some scatttered honors, but 16 hcp including 3.5 quick tricks, passed 2♠ initially and you guys gave him a choice of defending 3♦ or trying for 3♠s. So if you report this hand, I am sue nothing will come of it.

 

The next example, you are on much firmer ground. I will point out, in case you missed it, the last two hands were a different set of opponents than the hand above. On this hand your partner opened 1♥ and RHO "psyched" a vulnerable preemptive 2♠ overcall on...[hv=d=w&v=e&s=sqt9h976dt83c6543]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

Ok, this one is extremely odd. But, some people bid "crazy," his partner was a passed hand, and he could be trying to induce some "action". I would classify this as bid as highly suspecious, but wouldn't do much more than that yet. You next bid wasn't 3♥, but rather a 3♠ cue-bid. and the next hand as you said

"NEVER did anything but PASS for the entire auction, holding Kxxxx, Ax, xx, Axxx". That is, he didn't take the 4♠ save/make bid with a presumed 11 card fit (and this wasn't out of fear of pushing you to slam since he had two side aces. At the very worse your RHO is a frequent wacky psycher and his partner "caught" the pscyhe (which in itself is a form of cheating if you make this kind of psyche so frequently your partner can catch it).

 

So I would not report the first hand, I would report the second one. For the third one, the double. There is nothing I can say. Your LHO doesn't have a double for a couple of reasons. First it would ask for a spade lead and he is looking at xx in ♠ and a ♠ lead could easily give up a trick. Second, he has no reason to think his hand can win even one trick. Add to this his partner got off to an odd looking lead (any lead would have worked) of a low club from Ax.

 

So if I was in charge of investigating "cheating" allegations, and you reported these three hands, here is what I would do. I would ignore the allegations on the first hand and that would be the end of it. After looking at the two other hands, I would look at a selected group of furhter hands this played, I would suspend their log-in rights to the BBO until they answered questions about their bidding/play. But we must not throw people out for being "bad bidders". The evidence has to be stronger than just that.

 

Imagine you hear the following auction...[hv=d=w&v=e&s=sqt9h976dt83c6543]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

1♦-(Pass)-1♥-(2♣)

4♥-(Pass)-?

 

What do you bid. You have 9 tricks in your hand and your partner jumped to game, so must have the other four hearts and a good hand (double void in opponents hand). Anything from pass to a bunch of ♥s can be right. But let's agree nothing is too suspecious. IF this hand passes and the limit is 4♥s (off two clubs for instance) is that evidence of cheating? If he bids 6♥ without blackwood and that turns out to be cold, is that evidence of cheating? Of course not, blackwood would not help, and to cue-bid 5♦ here would not be safer approach than bidding 6♥. So there is no evidence of any funny business on this hand, right? Well, not if your the 4♥ bidder had the missing 4♥'s. But what if he had 3♥'s? What if he had 2♥'s? What if the 4♥ bidder had a singleton or void in ♥'s and 4♠s? or singleton or void in ♥, 6 good diamonds, and four good ♠? Would that be evidence of cheating. I think so. Look at both hands before you decide.

 

I say report what you think looks like obvious cheating, but in some cases (like kurts first example), you will probably be wrong. In other cases, it maybe too close to tell for sure. Others are fairly obvious cheating. Let's give uday a chance to deal with them and not make assumptions that the yellows and the administrators turn a blind eye to this stuff. They are bridge players too after all, and they hate this crap as much as the rest of us. However, I think uday's time has been much more productively spent improving the software (hard to believe, but it keeps getting better and better), than exhaustively checking reports of cheating. If the feeling is that no one is looking into cheating allegations, maybe a group of experienced yellows, or others, could be formed to investigate cheating allegations that look believable.

 

Ben

[csdenmark]

and the safest view is to assume innocent until proven guilty.

So we do in societies based on law and order Ben. Not in this way:

After looking at the two other hands, I would look at a selected group of furhter hands this played, I would suspend their log-in rights to the BBO until they answered questions about their bidding/play.

 

The nature of cheating is invisibility. You have earlier in this thread given an unlucky example of accusation of a pair with a simple misclick for cheating. They simply suffered one the many non-serious tournament set-ups. Nothing else!

 

If you want to detect cheating - you will need to be fairly good handling the tricks yourselves. A lot of lucky punches might be suspicious - number 1 on that list will therefore be Meckwell(Eric Rodwell/Jeff Meckstroth). You can see absolutely nothing from 1, 2 , 3 or even 4 hands. You will just be violating normal rules for protection of innocent people.

[uday]

Ignore it, say as little as possible, do as little as possible, and try to hush up anybody who speaks out on the issue with your explicit and implied "warnings". Isn't this the real, unstated policy at BBO?

 

I trust this is more bitter than serious.

 

I live in a country where innocence is presumed, and where guilt must be established beyond reasonable doubt before the "gov'mint" can take action. No jokes, please.

 

I handle the vast majority of cheating accusations. It is my belief that it is better to allow many suspected cheaters to play, unmolested, than to kick out people for cheating when there is insufficient evidence to prove that the perp is cheating.

 

This philosophy is not up for debate, not here and not now.

 

It is extremely difficult to prove that cheating has occurred. Yes, it is far easier to prove that cheating is likely to have happened. The latter is not sufficient.

 

Think about how you'd prove cheating occurred. Only the truly dumb cheaters can be detected. Any cheat with the least bit of sophistication will be difficult to pin down.

 

Think about our resources in this context. We have two nearly-full-time developers. One develops for the PC, the other for the servers. In our spare time, we deal with some customer support, and all the abuse cases. A pair that is accused of cheating needs to be investigated. System logs need to be dragged out, hands need to be analyzed by someone competent to make the determination that cheating might have occurred. Yes, we could charge a BBO entry fee, and use that to pay the people who handle abuse. Each serious case of suspected abuse takes many man hours to process. And in the end, you can almost never *know* that cheating occurred. You might suspect it, you might be willing to bet on it, but there is almost always room for doubt.

 

There is no need to suffer unstated policies. We don't have too many policies, but I make a practice of suspending people who make public accusations of cheating. I make a practice of cautioning people against making veiled accusations of cheating. We make a practice of preventing names from being used in the context of possible cheating. I make a practice of shutting down secondary PCs that might be used to abet cheating. I very rarely suspend permanently for cheating. I occasionally suspend a player to to get him to email me so that the player can offer an explanation for an action which I do not understand.

 

Only Fred and I can speak with the full weight of "BBO" behind us. Our yellows (long may they live) are a tremendous help. We have a lot of them, each with his/her own slant on things. A yellow name is a player, like yourself, who has demonstrated the willingness to spend a lot of time on BBO, helping players and helping select our direction. Yellows have direct access to us, and we take them very seriously. We give them a lot of leeway.

 

You may discuss cheating and cheating issues in these forums with no fear of official sanctions as long as you do not accuse anyone of cheating by name. You may feel free to offer solutions to the issue of "proof".

[inquiry]

and the safest view is to assume innocent until proven guilty.

So we do in societies based on law and order Ben. Not in this way:

After looking at the two other hands, I would look at a selected group of furhter hands this played, I would suspend their log-in rights to the BBO until they answered questions about their bidding/play.

 

The nature of cheating is invisibility. You have earlier in this thread given an unlucky example of accusation of a pair with a simple misclick for cheating. They simply suffered one the many non-serious tournament set-ups. Nothing else!

 

If you want to detect cheating - you will need to be fairly good handling the tricks yourselves. A lot of lucky punches might be suspicious - number 1 on that list will therefore be Meckwell(Eric Rodwell/Jeff Meckstroth). You can see absolutely nothing from 1, 2 , 3 or even 4 hands. You will just be violating normal rules for protection of innocent people.

Claus,

 

I STRONGLY, and empahatically disagree with your "misclick" theory. The reason being, to have misclicked 4NT instead of 4♠. This is for three very clear reasons.

 

First, he doesn't have a rebid at all, much less a jump to 4♠... what did he do, misclick a 4 and NT instead of pass.

 

Second, at the very most if he was going to rebid his anemic suit vulnerable on his massive 8 count, would he rebid 2♠, not 4♠. So on a 2♠ rebid are we to believe he double misclicked on 4 instead of 2 as well as NT instead of ♠?

 

Third, and most importantly, even in the wildly unlikely event that he 1) meant to bid 4♠ with this flat, subminimum at imps, and 2) in the process of bidding 4♠ he accidentally hit 4NT instead of 4♠.... there is no justification, or explaination, for his remarkable decision to remove 6♠ to 7♠.

 

Quite frankly, that auction, even with the "explaination" of a misclick with the bid of 4NT, simple is not defendable. This really isn't close, and your repeat defense of this auction mind boggling to me.

 

As far as the idea of looking at some other boards if a pair or player seems to have taken advantage of some form of unathorized information? What the heck can be wrong with that. If there is reason to believe that a pair is cheating, what would you do... rule on just one or two hands and be done, or investigate further? Your defense of NOT LOOKING deeper makes no sense at all to me. It is, in fact, undefindable given your view that "You can see absolutely nothing from 1, 2 , 3 or even 4 hands" In fact, my view actually agreed with this for most cases, which is why said an investigation of other hands (from the myhands database) be looked at. But as I said in my earlier post, the amount of effort to look into online cheating by examing hand records is very time consuming. I have looked back at one pair someone told me they "where clearly cheating", and after 250 hands, I could find zero evidence of cheating... in fact, I found a lot of evidence (too much for their own good), to show that they not only where not cheating, they could not have any knowledge of what was going on and bid/play like they did. Another player, I thought I found evidence of cheating and I sent it to abuse@bridgebase.com. And another player, after extensive searching I think he is cheating, but it is not sure in my own mind. I certainly don't think reporting him would be useful, because I know no one else is as crazy as I to look at so many hands. Now for "fun" (curiosity actually), I look at the winners and second place finishers in come tournments, and then look at their hand records to see what is happening. When you do that, you occassionaly run across a hand like this

(a hand I quoted in my last post)....

[hv=d=w&v=n&n=st76542hdj96543c5&w=saq83hkdakqt87cj4&e=sj9haqt987643dcq9&s=skhj52d2cakt87632]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]West    North   East    South

1♦      Pass    1♥      2♣      

4♥      Pass    Pass    Pass    

 

If I was uday, I would say the EAST-WEST pair here exactly what Ricky use to say to Lucy...."Lucy, you got some explaining to do...." Now in your world, WEST was going to bid 4♦ and misclicked... and east with nine tricks in his hand and reasons to expect the opponents are both void in hearts decided to pass... Ok, possible. But I would look at a few more hands. And take my word for it, the pair that bid this way had six more highly suspesious auctions from this very same tournment, and each one turned to gold for them (6 misclicks, should cause a bad outcome at least some of the time, I would say more than half the time, not 6 perfect results).

 

But I am sure you will defend 4♥ as a misclick, as that is your view. But to perfectly honest with you Claus, your views seem out-of-touch with the majority of the people posting here. For instance, you don't mind cheaters.... .but you get mad if people forget their parts of their own system. Here is the quote....

 

"This also means - cheaters can only ruin the fun for themselves - not for others.  I like to see actions to be taken against those who are spoiling my fun of the game. That is those who cannot master their own system"

 

I hate to break the news to you, but you are going to be out on island by yourself on this one. Cheaters spoil the fun for everyone (but you of course), and the rest of us realize that even experts forget their system. I remember the famous case where in the world championship a pair bid grand slam off all four aces....Forgetting is sadly part of the game, we all expect to happen to us and against us.

 

Second, you seem to confuse "social bridge" from "serious bridge" in your arguments. First, I play serious bridge even in social settings, but what I am getting at here are these, imho, direct opposite views you express about tournment bridge....

There are so many tournaments and really many with no serious set-up.

Tournaments are just an alternative set-up of social bridge play.

And in a different thread you attacked JRG, without any good reason, over the lack of use of convention cards and you repeatedly advocate the force use of convention cards in tournment play... In your thread with JRG, you asked him about playing in championship play without convention cards.

 

Well, while I play in social settings without convention cards all the time, as I supect most people do. If, you claim online tournments are "social" and not "serious", why do you advocate use of convention cards in all tournments. The two positions ... social so cheating is ok (which I don't accept either), or serious and they are...

[csdenmark]

Ben you are very welcome to give me my words back. I enjoy a good exchange of views on a friendly basis - even the words sometimes may touch the walls. From that I think something positive has a chance to arise instead of just repeating standard attitudes.

 

I will here comment about alert box/convention cards. I hope and think John Goold didnt took it so. I still remember the first think session in B/I-lounge. As well Fred/Wayne and you/John Goold played acc. to convention cards. I also remember a comment from Fred that a certain standard bid for him was not possible because convention card, I assume Wayne's, stated some other meaning. So it has to be - so is standard - so is good standard. Thats what I think we all ought to try to be better pursuing.

 

There have been several threads about alert box. I am not against improving performance of that but not on the cost of no improvement of convention cards. Thats the message from me - and in John's reply I read his agreement to that.

 

The rest Ben - later or private. English is not that easy for me to handle - you know that!

[inquiry]

You may feel free to offer solutions to the issue of "proof".

I don't think anyone has THE solution.

 

But pehaps the BBO adminstrators should establish committees of volunteers people who have experience, knowledge, and the necessary desire to see cheating decreased on line to investigate allegations of cheating.

 

These ethics committee members should be annonoymous, to avoid lobbying by either side of an allegation. They should not investigate the allegation if made by one of their "friends" or against one of their "enemies." They should not have the power to make any final verdit of guilt, but they are allowed to exonerate the wrongfully accussed. The committee should probably include someone who is assigned the task of specifically finding and expressing bridge logic WHY the accused was not cheating (like a public defender). The committee should pass on allegations of cheating where they find true merit in the allegation.

 

Maybe each serious allegation that gets one committee to agree it has merit could be given to yet a differerent committee to see what they say (without telling them it was reviewed before). If two committees agree, then and only then would uday have to spend his valuable time looking at it. The committees could be made of three to five people. In three people committees, two votes is enough, in four or five, three votes are needed.

 

To get around legal and ethical issues, it might be possible to send the hands in question wihtout player identification, but then the committee members will not be able to look at other hands the person played. OR, maybe the software could send the hands in question, and maybe 100 other hands by that pair, without player identification. Also, without player identification, no way to ask the appropriate questions (system, agreements, why this bid or play).

 

It is a thought at least. 1) No wasting of important and critical programmer time with silly complaints, 2) an original review, and 3) an instant appeal process, and 4) uday and/or fred will still have final say. And neither committee will know how the second committee ruled (it may never have even got to uday or fred). Repeat offenders can be treated differently than first timers.

 

Perfect? Probably not. Can you find enough people with sufficient experience to serve on these committees for free? Probably. Will there judgement always be right? Probably not. But, remember, even after the committee rules, nothing other than forwarding it on to uday would occur.

 

Something to think about at least. These may need fine tuning, or maybe someone has a completely different, but better solution.

 

Ben

[uday]

Even the cited hand, where one player raised 1H to 4 on stiff K, had an innocent explanation. The tourney was a 'goulash' tourney, where the hands were preloaded. According to the 4H bidder, his P was known to have at least 7. I didnt follow all of his reasoning, but I did grasp that P was guaranteed to hold a 6 card suit at a minimum.

 

I think this goes to show only that we have to be careful when assuming cheating.