[ggwhiz]

 hrothgar, on 2014-April-03, 08:39, said:

Given all the accusations of cheating that we see bandied about, why do individual believe that these types of hardware assists aren’t in common use?

ACBL Score was written in Fortran and it took them forever to find a 90 year old programmer sharp enough to come up with a Windows version. And it still sucks.

How much more tech savvy is the WBF? [end rant]

I would never spend moola and vacation time to go to a tournament, sit in a room with a bunch of strangers and play a video game.

[lamford]

 hrothgar, on 2014-April-03, 10:04, said:

I posted both

The fact that they were both written by Richard Willey ought to have been the clue that MrAce missed.

[Bbradley62]

 uday, on 2014-April-03, 11:37, said:

I so wish I had an alias so i could toss in my 2 cents w/o it seeming like an official bbo opinion

You should have at least as many aliases as Justin

[fromageGB]

 whereagles, on 2014-April-03, 11:38, said:

wanna hear a fun story?

Opps play 3♥. Play:

1. West leads small spade from AKxx, to partner's singleton Q.
2. Back to West's diamond ace.
3. ♠AK, East discarding two diamonds.
4. Diamond ruff.

1 down

Perpetrators (two croupiers) got eradicated a few months later. This was evidence.

How many coughs does it take to show a (specifically) singleton (specifically) Q of (specifically) spades?

If they can convey this information in a discreet way they must be geniuses.

[gnasher]

 WellSpyder, on 2014-April-03, 09:07, said:

I wonder whether those who made such comments about this pair could say how many other pairs they are aware of in the current international bridge scene who were/are subject to the same suspicions? (obviously without naming names!)

I think there's only one more top player who "everyone" thinks is cheating.

[mike777]

I agree with the comments expressed in this thread except for the fact that indeed there are workable solutions.

I strongly disagree agree that all solutions will destroy the game.

Given there are workable solutions, we should test them out.

[mike777]

 ggwhiz, on 2014-April-03, 12:33, said:

ACBL Score was written in Fortran and it took them forever to find a 90 year old programmer sharp enough to come up with a Windows version. And it still sucks.

How much more tech savvy is the WBF? [end rant]

I would never spend moola and vacation time to go to a tournament, sit in a room with a bunch of strangers and play a video game.

The resources of the WBF appear to be rather limited.
I also would not go into a room to play a video game but then I am old.

This in fact seems to be quite common among young people. I often see people absorbed by the video and text on a machine in a room full of people and this is when they have spent some money or are vacation. Wearable devices are starting to come out and who knows how far out a chip in the brain is.

[Cyberyeti]

 whereagles, on 2014-April-03, 11:38, said:

wanna hear a fun story?

Opps play 3♥. Play:

1. West leads small spade from AKxx, to partner's singleton Q.
2. Back to West's diamond ace.
3. ♠AK, East discarding two diamonds.
4. Diamond ruff.

1 down

Perpetrators (two croupiers) got erradicated a few months later. This was evidence.

If you saw this one simply presented to you it would look similar:

W underleads ♥AKxxx against 4♠ E wins J
Gives W a club ruff
♥ to Q
club ruff

Wired ?

Nope, E led Q♥ out of turn, at the time, declarer could ask for the lead of any suit, asked for a club, W said he had none, Q♥ back in the E hand and was obvious from there.

[mfa1010]

 whereagles, on 2014-April-03, 11:38, said:

wanna hear a fun story?

Opps play 3♥. Play:

1. West leads small spade from AKxx, to partner's singleton Q.
2. Back to West's diamond ace.
3. ♠AK, East discarding two diamonds.
4. Diamond ruff.

1 down

Perpetrators (two croupiers) got erradicated a few months later. This was evidence.

Evidence? Uhh, scary

My expert partner once found a magic lead of a small from AKxx against a suit contract. With QTx in dummy declarer misguessed to my jack. Later in the same segment, inspired as I had become, I found the lead of small from Qx in trumps. It was the only setting lead, since partner had the ace and could chop the head off declarer's king in a side suit on the way back before declarer could take discards.

Judged from your post, it seems I should be lucky not yet to have been erradicated. But maybe it is just a matter of time before my luck runs out:

One of my not so expert bridge students playing with me once found the lead of the ♦J from AKJxxxx against a 2♣(!) contract ... which happen to run to declarer's ♦Qx. Phew ... otherwise I would probably still be in jail by now.

[aguahombre]

 mfa1010, on 2014-April-03, 16:25, said:

One of my not so expert bridge students playing with me once found the lead of the ♦J from AKJxxxx against a 2♣(!) contract ... which happen to run to declarer's ♦Qx. Phew ... otherwise I would probably still be in jail by now.

Your expert partner chose an insignificant (2C) contract to make that lead as a "loss leader" so you could later defend yourselves by saying, "Look what happened on Board x!"

Obviously I am joking, but the point is this: Actual play on a specific hand might be corroborating evidence when there are allegations; but, you really need to correlate a code with a holding (repeatedly) in order to prove cheating. Using or not using illegal communication on particular hands is not really relevant. The illegal communication is what must be proved and censured -- in and of itself illegal communication is the cheating.

[FM75]

Economics:
One of the key principals in punishment is the the punishment needs to exceed the cost of enforcement - or be sufficiently costly to the perpetrator to serve as a deterrent. So fines at parking meters are large, because one can't efficiently catch every non-payer. Prison is costly to the perpetrator - compared to the alternative of being free.

Cheating at anything for money tends to be a losing strategy in the long run.

Logistics:
It is probably fair to say that the typical venue described does not have the infrastructure to 1) power up all of the hardware - how many sockets do you see in a ballroom, 2) Wireless bandwidth and ports are likely insufficient as well - and many venues actually have the whole package farmed out to a provider that charges by the hour for each user. 3) The heat load of a ballroom full of laptops likely would overwhelm the HVAC? 4) These rooms don't have faraday shields - so they won't stop electronic communication between rooms, 4) provisioning all of the laptops, making sure they can't do anything but play bridge - awkward. Heck! people on BBO can't even agree to stop playing on the old windows client.

Social:
This has already been mentioned.

[Fluffy]

I am sure all arguments against going electronical at high level where already presented when screens came to use. The only difference is that we are in another century now and have better solutions than screens.

I lose focus playing online, but that's because I end up looking webpages when I am bored. With the stress of an important tournament it wouldn't happen.

Also I have a bad experience from Lille 2012, I went down in 6♦ because I forgot a card I had on my own hand, I hardly look at my own cards while playing in real life. A silly mistake I am working on, but something that wouldn't had happened with electronic cards on a screen.

[Fluffy]

 gnasher, on 2014-April-03, 15:24, said:

I think there's only one more top player who "everyone" thinks is cheating.

There are some 'degrees' on cheating, I heard a story about some drunken players from a succesful bridge country talking about a hand where a player had failed the defence because they didn't know if the lead was singleton or doubleton and made the wrong move. They were debating for some minutes about what play gives the best chances when wrong untill the best player in the room, ranked among the top 20 in the world got tired and shout: HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY NOT KNOW IF PARTNER'S LEAD S A SINGLETON OR NOT??????

[Fluffy]

One more thing, the electronic things doesn't care about what IMO is the easiest way to cheating: buy hand records.

[cherdano]

I think it's very hard to cheat systematically at the top level without making other top players suspicious.

Players try to get into each other's head. If they play against someone repeatedly, they try to figure out their style, get a sense of their weaknesses. If they got s.th. right that teammates got wrong at the other table, they try to figure out why. Even if it's just a 50/50 guess that they "guessed" correctly. That means following along their thought process.
Your thought process immediately becomes completely different when you cheat - it's the same problem you are trying to figure out, but you are given different information.

To cheat without making other's suspicious you'd have to be very careful - pick your spots and only act on the extra information if the decision is close with the legal information.

If this has convinced you, I'd hope that you also think that bridge organizations should be more proactive about monitoring players who are rumoured to be cheating.

[the hog]

While Richard's points are certainly valid, I do find myself agreeing with MFA. We have trialled electronic playing in some clubs in Australia. I miss the cards. Playing in an isolated area where you cannot see the opponents is just simply not fun for me.

[MrAce]

 uday, on 2014-April-03, 11:37, said:

I so wish I had an alias so i could toss in my 2 cents w/o it seeming like an official bbo opinion

Write it to me and i will post them as MrAce. This way people may even think that i improved my grammar and speech skills as well

[Hanoi5]

Maybe for the next Olympic Games we can have Usain Bolt running on a treadmill in Jamaica while his opponents will also run on treadmills in their own country. Of course there'll be an IOC member checking everything in each country but that way nobody would move.

Suppose some player in NYC finds himself in a blackout. Well, he loses the match. Another player loses his internet connection. Bye, bye. Better still, as the player was losing the match someone will say he 'produced' the condition, thus blaming him/her for cheating. The possibilities are endless.

I think f2f bridge and online/electronic bridge are two different things. Table feel is a important part of the game I would say. Among other things.

[mikeh]

IMO, the game should never be played in a manner that eliminates revokes, mis-suiting the hand, bidding out of turn, missing a call in the auction. You say this never happens at high-level bridge? I say you're wrong....it doesn't happen very often but it is part of the human condition that we make mechanical errors or momentarily lose focus. Bridge is a human activity and playing online is artificial. Of course, it is artificial in the sense of lacking face to face human interaction as well.

However, in the unlikely event that bridge survives, it will likely be played, in 30+ years, by people whose social interaction has been largely digital anyway

[MrAce]

 gnasher, on 2014-April-03, 15:24, said:

I think there's only one more top player who "everyone" thinks is cheating.

How can there be only one player everyone thinks he is cheating, but not his pd ?