[rhm]

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Playing a BBO IMP pairs tournament you East play a homegrown strong club system.
South a self-proclaimed "BBO expert" leads the ♣A and North South cash the first 5 tricks.
You end up with the 7 tricks you started with.

At the time I did not call the director and I did not feel damaged. In fact I picked up 2 IMPs because most pairs got higher and quite a few went minus.

Given the bidding South knew that all bids below 1NT were artificial and declarer was very strong and dummy broke.

How could South come up with this remarkable lead after this bidding?
Would you consider this proof of cheating?
I myself believe a single board proves nothing, but I have wondered about this lead ever since.

Rainer Herrmann

[Free]

Quote

How could South come up with this remarkable lead after this bidding?

Self-proclaimed BBO experts do all kinds of funny things. Underleading a Q isn't really attractive so the red suits seem to be gone. Between ♠ and ♣, perhaps South feared that he might lead into East's ♠ fork, or maybe he just wanted to get a look at the dummy. Or maybe he thinks his partner is probably stronger and ♣ might be his suit (and he was right for once). Who knows.

Quote

Would you consider this proof of cheating?

Not at all. It's not that remarkable imo. Sometimes people do strange things that work out ok. It doesn't mean they're cheating, perhaps they're just lucky. If you want to prove someone is cheating, you need to analyze ALL boards played by this person, and see if any strange auction ever ends badly. If not, then there might be something weird going on, but if it's like 50-50/60-40/70-30 then I don't think the guy is cheating.

Quote

I myself believe a single board proves nothing, but I have wondered about this lead ever since.

If you ask me, I think you're seeing ghosts.

[gordontd]

I'd go along with Free's analysis.

[han]

I disagree with Free and Gordon, I have no reason to think this pair is cheating or not but the lead is very strange.

[JLOGIC]

You would have to be pretty idiotic to lead the CA if you were cheating, if you could see all the hands then you know your lead didn't matter, if you could see just your partners hand then you would see that it usually didn't matter, but a heart lead would be better if you were cheating + wouldn't attract any attention.

I guess if you just knew partner liked clubs...but it's an online tournament not a live one so I don't see how people would cheat and only exchange that small amount of info.

That said, I'm sure it's possible that people who cheat in BBO imp games are stupid enough to just see that they might be able to run 5 clubs and make this lead lol. It is a strange lead for sure, but I would not see it as evidence that a pair is cheating. If you found that on every single deal they found their partners best suit or runnable suit, then you could use this hand as evidence towards that pattern, but just as an isolated hand no way would I assume they are cheating.

[pooltuna]

How much money did you lose, Rainer? That is my measurement for worry less to worry more about cheating

[paulg]

It is a problem that no-one posts the zillions of hands where a stupid lead gives them loads of tricks. It does not need many monkeys playing on BBO to come up with the ace of clubs lead.

[phil_20686]

I'm not even sure it is *that* strange. I would certainly have considered it at imps. Does not seem like we can beat 1N when rho has 19+ unless partner has a suit. Further given that i have next to no defensive assets running the suit will probably squeeze declarer out of some options before he knew which ones to take. Finally, it seems like I want to avoid ever being on lead, so might as well get rid of my entry asap

[CSGibson]

This pair makes a number of unusual leads, all of which appear double-dummy & effective. It's enough to report it to BBO & let them investigate, I think.

[kayin801]

When I first started to play "bridge" I would always cash all the winners in my hand regardless of whether I was declaring or defending!

I'll echo what the others say though, only if it's part of a trend is it evidence.

[nige1]

rhm, on 2011-June-28, 02:56, said:

...How could South come up with this remarkable lead after this bidding? Would you consider this proof of cheating? I myself believe a single board proves nothing, but I have wondered about this lead ever since.

I agree with Rainer. It's a strange lead but doesn't show that South was cheating.

If an on-line site wants to deter cheating, however, then it can automatically monitor "diagnostic deals" like this, where an unlikely bid or play will work. If a player demonstrates a pattern of strange successful decisions, then the software will flag the player. The site-police can then investigate him further. Perhaps they'll talent-scout a future wolrd-champion

[MrAce]

It is strange yes, but i agreed with Free that it is not a clue to think they are cheating with only this, as Rainer already stated.

However now that i read CGibson's reply, assuming he made a little work on the hand records of this pair, and i trust his judgement, then i think u have lot more than just 1 hand to be suspicious.

[hotShot]

What is so strange about this lead?
All bids where artificial, so nothing is known about the suits, but partner could have doubled ♦ and ♠, he's probably strong enough for a dbl.
RHO has shown 19+ and LHO made a 2nd negative. All of partners values are in front of declarer and declarer might be cut of from dummy, as dummy is to weak to have an entry.
Any suit I touch, I play a finesse though partners hand that could help the declarer.
The only "save" card is the A♣ and if partner signals positiv, the problem is solved.
Even if partners signal is negative, it probably won't cost a trick.

[Zelandakh]

This pair certainly do make some unusual leads! Even when a more normal lead would suffice indeed. Almost all suspect leads in my admittedly small (1 month) sample are into partner's strength and I would say that this is a clear pattern. Unlike CSGibson I would not say that the leads are clearly double dummy, more likely just with comparison of the 2 defensive hands, either directly or with simple words (I like clubs, say).

[MrAce]

hotShot, on 2011-June-29, 05:10, said:

The only "save" card is the A♣ and if partner signals positiv, the problem is solved.
Even if partners signal is negative, it probably won't cost a trick.

Are you aware that you are not leading vs 6NT but 1 nt ?

And how do u know if it will not cost a trick ? After all you are cashing an unprotected Ace, of your shortest suit and collecting deuces from opponents in as low as 1NT contract. And also interesting that u speak as if each time pd signals positive he has KQJxx. Thats far from truth in most cases. Unless pd always knows u cash this A from Ax.

Please dont get me wrong, i am not saying this is wrong lead, but this is definetely not a usual lead for me.

[hotShot]

MrAce, on 2011-July-01, 17:41, said:

Are you aware that you are not leading vs 6NT but 1 nt ?

And how do u know if it will not cost a trick ? After all you are cashing an unprotected Ace, of your shortest suit and collecting deuces from opponents in as low as 1NT contract. And also interesting that u speak as if each time pd signals positive he has KQJxx. Thats far from truth in most cases. Unless pd always knows u cash this A from Ax.

Please dont get me wrong, i am not saying this is wrong lead, but this is definetely not a usual lead for me.

Thank you for trying to answer my question, I agree that this is not a textbook lead, but this no textbook hand either.
I just dispute that it is "strange", when underleading a red Q obviously has disadvantages on this hand and there is a reasonable chance that leading ♠ and by that finessing partners possible ♠ honors might not be good. So no suit is really appealing.

[JLOGIC]

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