[keylime]

Mike hit the nail dead on with an accuracy not seen often. Having been on both sides of the fence being unjustly accused and asking that pair x is checked for possible irregularity, either way you end up losing something. Think about it this way - it's almost a Morton's Fork on the pair. If they are accused someone will believe the suggested words as facts, whether it's true or not. If they suggest someone might be not on the up and up, either they are severely frowned upon or yet again the vicious cycle starts again.

There is no easy way ever to absolutely identify cheating. It takes a great many hours of effort, years of experience, and then often consultation. Due to this, my pard and I don't even care anymore if they are, might be, or just thinking about a play - we simply let them. The only time we get upset these days is if it's blatantly clear that the bidding does not match the hands. Then we start getting very antsy.

With the coming of ACBL events onto BBO, this topic will not subside into the sunset. It will come up with a ferocity at times that will threaten to turn person against person. It happened to me with regards to someone, and I regret it now because I look upon him highly. I had the right feeling, just the wrong interlocution of that feeling. Would I go back and change the presentation of those feelings? You bet. I simply hope that cooler heads would prevail and as Uday say "let the noise" be enough of a deterrant. Don't do what I did and go flying off the handle - that solves very very little.

[rona_]

North

♠ K x
♥ KQJxxx
♦ void
♣ Kxxx

South

♠ xxx
♥ Ax
♦ Q10xxxxx
♣ void

I was North and opened the bidding, which went, 1♥-x-P-1♠
2♥-3♠-4♥-4♠
X-P-P-P

I led the king of hearts, partner played the 7. I thought he had 4 and was asking me to stop. I switched to a club, he ruffed, came back a diamond I ruffed, etc.
Declarer was down 3. The TD was called to the table by one of our opponents during the play of the hand. We had no idea why. However I noticed that the TD followed us during most of the tournament. When we finished I messaged him and asked why he was called to our table and why he was following us. He said that our opponents thought that was strange play!! The so called *expert* opponent did not take the time to look at the hand, or realise during play that my partner had 8 diamonds and had no other lead? Did the TD look at the hand and try to figure out what went on, or did he go to other tables and check results? No he just followed us around. The result was the same at most tables.

It was a surviver tournament but we didn't survive. I believe that most people who play tournaments on BBO are honest but I might just be naive. I also believe that TD's should use their head. Obviously in our case he/she didn't.

I have a question. When a TD is called to a table, shouldn't everyone know why he is called? Private messaging with one of the players should not be an option in my view, unless it's something of a personal nature, i.e. he wants to leave and needs a sub. Do we have to play the rest of the tournament, under the supervision of a TD because some *expert* made a mistake?

If people want to cheat, they can be my guests. If it is impossible to stop them from doing so, so be it. However, please let the rest of us play in peace.

[the hog]

I know there must be cheating on BBO. The following has convinced me:

Everybody has all these secret codes: "glp" (Go Low Partner - and sure enough declarer usually plays low from dummy), "typ" (about Time You Passed - clearly they have seen the board before) , "brb" (Be Really Boring - and play just slows right down) , "last one for me" (but almost never has last trick, and then the player leaves before anybody can say anything), and "sayc" (I'm not sure of this one, I thought at first it meant sacrificing {sac-ing) but after -1400, -1700, and then -2300 {it hurt} I concluded it must be something else).

The other day I open 1NT (15-17 but I upgraded my 12 count on account of two useful tens). The next player doubled and, as if he knew my hand, said "Dont". I became certain they knew the hand when it went all pass, he started leading this darn long suit and his partner showed up with a heck of a lot of points for somebody who bid nothing.

How come novices, intermediates, and sometimes even advanced players keep beating the snot out of BBO self-proclaimed "experts"?

The other day I saw a pair bid a slam that needed a 4-4 trump split, two backward finesses, and a misdefense at the end; what could this be but cheating?

People keeping saying they are "Goren" when I know he is dead.

I never win.

(Apologies to Glen Ashton).

[etherwiz]

There is another form of cheating not even touched by these three pages of emails.

When the dummy tells a partner to claim the play may be obvious to that partner, but may not be what the declarer was planning to play. Perhaps it will just cause the declarer to rethink some plays he had decided on, perhaps not. But I think the claim button is not enabled for the dummy for a reason.

There are other more subtle ways too, talking about the play of a previous hand in a way that could affect the current play. If someone actually went to the trouble of setting up “signals” we would probably never know. Quite frankly if someone comes aCalling saying “they are cheating” I am thinking hat they are poor losers (maybe apart from a slow response to an obvious claim). This is why more and more of mine are called “For Fun” and “No Adjustments Made”. In fact most of the ones I have run lately are “make ups” for tournaments gone bad or crashed for one reason or another (mainly missing TD’s), and I run solely for the masses who missed out on some conclusion. A canceled Tournament never has a winner.

May be I am an innocent babe playing with a marked deck, but I would prefer to believe that people are not routinely cheating. At least not most of them most of the time.
Perhaps this is the type of innocence needed for a second marriage to work.
Or perhaps it is the type of innocence that causes a second marriage to fail.

Point of view I guess.

What I hate is a player that tells his partner (the declarer) to claim, and then blames that on one of the Opps being late to the table. “Well I just had to say CLAIM, the opp was late getting here”. This when that “opp” was actually on time and the majority of the tables not even started yet !

To me that is rude as well as cheating.

And then the TD comes to table, tells the offender not to tell his partner when to claim and makes no mention of the rudeness.

This rudeness, not really the cheating, but the rude behavior cheating causes, is what can really spell the end to something good. It is the interaction between people that also draws us to this game. You know some of us ride motorcycles, some of us wheelchairs, some watch football and some watch ballet, even a large portion of us might like opera and others Oprah. But whatever we ride, watch or listen to, we think in terns of the play of the cards. If there was only one way to play the cards then we would not be here, would we?

There is something I would like to bring up – totally not in topic with this. There are a few (not many) youngsters who do play here. One is my 13 year old daughter who has never told anyone here her age. There are few from the city high schools and I do not know if they have told even their partners exactly how young they are, but that might become a factor at some time. I know this sounds silly (and it may be silly) but the internet is a fearsome thing and even laws to cover the situations it can present are not covered. I hate to say it – age verification to play bridge – but perhaps those more knowledgeable then I talk about it.


A second topic, if I could.

Banning a player.

The simple fact that this can be done with out the banned player even told he was being banned astonishes me. No way to defend against accusations if they are never presented. Not even a private whisper (let alone a few lines in a chat room, which I feel is a reasonable expectation). This person had finished sub’ing in one tournament, had just taken a seat in another tournament to sub again, was playing a hand, and in front of over 70 Kib’ers – BAMM – was banished.

I hate to see old politics from a now non-existent site be used to carry grudges against people here. For one thing this IS a NEW SITE, for Pete’s Sake at least use NEW POLITICS here, not the same old same old. And definitely a YELLOW should not extend old grudges to here.

As BBO grows larger and larger, which it surely will do, perhaps a new rule should be a single Yellow can not ban a player. Perhaps at least a second Yellow should also endorse the banning, preventing personal likes/dislikes/grudges from interfering with what “should” be done. Perhaps even a Yellow who wants to ban some one that he/she has openly demonstrated grudges to before should remove him/herself from that conference where the offending player is accused and tried and convicted in a split second. If you can not remove the Yellow with a known prejudice against the player, let the player at least bring a chat log to such a gathering.

In any case the banned person should at least be told they are banned and why. Now this is a privately owned site and no one can force their presence here - but to be banned with no explanation in front of over 70 people as you sit to sub at a table? We all know that people will usually think the worse of another, but that surely would cause anyone to think poorly of both a saint and a devil.

I would appreciate some serious response to this and I hope that all these topics belong in this forum.

_*_Dave

[Booze]

even yellows can do wrong ) the only reason I have banned someone without any warnings is racistic remarks or sexual abusers, I dont see any reason to talk to them.

and to another subject , I hope we are discussing cheating that can be proved, not any cryptic chat codes that take years to encrypt.

the worst case I have seen is this 1nt -2 clubs (not alerted) -pass - pass -(a long break) 3nt from opener and pass -pass - pass. I think someone told him that his passing P had some nice cards for him, the 1 Nt was a normal 15 points hand , rather bad hand, but a superfit made 3 nt cold . I checked some hands from these guys , they played and bid rather good at them , so I dont think it was some kind of beginner mistake. I asked them to explain this bidding but got no response.

IMO this is not 100 % clear but is it close enough ??

I admit that I do spectacular bids too, but mostly because of some logic thinking, I was accused for cheating when I balanced with a 3 card suit , I knew from opps bidds that P had at least 4 in that suit, but I was very lucky he had 5 , this was very strange for my opps , they couldnt believe it.


Bo

[bglover]

As has been discussed continually on this board and in many threads, sometimes you make a fine, logical bid/play and the opponent fails to understand it and immediately cries "cheat." Matter of fact that is what started my initial rant to open this very long thread. It has happened to every good player at one time or another because bad players don't have the ability to understand the logic behind whatever was done and why it WAS a GOOD PLAY/BID.

All of us can relate stories like Bo's I am sure and we can all have a great laugh about them... But it isn't the point at all. The point is the accusation itself is horrible and that if it is done at a table where many people may tend to believe the accusation is true (because they maybe are lesser players incapable of understanding the play as well and therefore may assume the accuser had a point) then the good player might well have a taint of "cheater" attached to his reputation. To me, that is dangerous and why I started this thread.

I personally know three people on this site (all of whom have listed themselves as "experts" or above) who have made multiple accusations of cheating against someone just because they were getting beat by a "probably" better player and could not understand that player's thinking. I will not play with these people because of this nor will I let them sit at my table period. That is aberrant behavior in my opinion. I find it very sad that two of these players have some modicum of respect around here, as both are known to pull out the "cheat" card with great frequency and both have damaged some people's reputations unfairly (in my opinion). To me, these two are at least as bad (if not worse) than people that actually do cheat.

I would almost rather see these two people permanently banned than people who cheat, beacuse they have undoubtedly done more damage by their frequent unfair accusations than any cheater ever could. I guess that is the whole point.