[melviss666]

I didn't get to play online in November nor this month, but, my most regular face-to-face pard did have some time to get online a couple of times in these past two months, which is rare for him, but, I wasn't able to join him. We talked on the phone a week ago & he said that virtually everyone he played against, teams & main club, no ACBL tourneys, was cheating. This is a person with near 10,000 ACBL mp's & he plays pro as often as not. Get my drift? I told him that both ebridge & the Zone had folded up & so now the vast majority of those players were now on BBO. I never liked either of those sites, but, I did belong to ebridge for a year because it was the only online club I knew of at the time. By the time my subscription was up, you were in the definite minority if you weren't cheating; it was really kind of hysterical. Swan is full of cheats as well, I suppose being "rated" on every hand has something to do with it. Plus, the problem of players leaving before finishing a hand, due to the same rating thing, was even worse than here. So, here's to my wishing that Swan stays in business. Yes, I know there was cheating here before those two sites shut down, but, I didn't run across it nearly so often as I do now.
It can be fun playing against cheats, maybe good practice(?), but, it can be wearisome when you ain't in the mood. I've even been accused of cheating, once by a gold star,lol, I suppose I consider those the highest compliments. In closing, I have no solutions, but, I wish something could be done to get it back under control a bit. BTW, I don't play in ACBL tournaments or hardly EVER in a pairs tourneys; then, I guess, I'd really be bitchin'.

[inquiry]

Do people "cheat" when playing on line bridge? Yes, of course it happens.

Is it true that "virtually everyone he played against, teams & main club, no ACBL tourneys, was cheating"?

No. Cheating happens, but it is not virtually everyone, nor is it a majority. In fact, the blantant cheaters are few and far between. BBO has an active anti-cheating program and when cheating is proven (not suspected, but proven), players are banned as effectively as BBO can (unlike swan, ebridge, okbridge) we are a free site that doesn't require "proof of identity to play." Thus banning a player doesn't always stick, for obvious reasons

I think it is sad that you think that the majority of players on ebridge were cheating when you were a member. It seems you see cheaters behind every tree and every bid/play. You have extended that to every online site. If you feel this way, I suggest one of two things for you. First, find a group of people you trust compelelty and only play in team matches wth and against them. Alternatively give up online bridge, it is making you too cynical.

Let me put this into perspective. We will assume that you do not cheat. Despite this you say a bbo gold star accused you of cheating. We can agree that a gold star is a very good player (ok, some I think maynot be that good, but lets go with the assumption that they are all good). The fact that a good player can think you are cheating when you were not is defacto evidence that just because a good player suspects cheating doesn't mean it is happening. Do you agree?

I can't tell you the number of times truly horrible players are turned in for cheating. They are horrible players so they bid poorly and play worse. But occassionally even a bad bid (or really stupid play) turns out to work no matter how against odds the bid or play was. And when it does, the opponent who realizes that "nobody would bid or play like that if they were not cheating" will quickly report them as cheating. The number of times the pair that comes in dead last or virtually last in large tournament is reported for cheating is amazing. Their one "good board" shown as proof they have to be cheating.

Also very good players are turned in for cheating, despite the fact they made their systemic bid or a normal "standard play" that worked well. I have had several reported to me for cheating when they took a safety play at imps that turns out to be necessarily. The fact is, "they were cheating" is just too easy an exuse to explain why you (not you specificially) didn't do well, that too many people use it.

[melviss666]

I think it's sad you see cynicism behind every remark. I think, for the most part, the cheating is HYSTERICAL, let me refresh YOUR cynical memory on that, bud. I've been a certified director nearly 25 years, a certified teacher for 22 years, & have played pro off & on about the same. My face-to-face pard has most excellent credentials. We KNOW when people are cheating & we KNOW when we plain get beat, there's a difference. I, during my tenure at ebridge, was asked by Benny to help him catch cheats, which sadly, they gave up on. Maybe because they knew they were selling out to another company? All I said was the instances of cheating have definitely gone up since ebridge & zone folded, & I don't see how you could possibly deny that, but, it would be lovely to see it under a little more control.

[uday]

If this thread degrades into the anticipated flamefest, it will be moved to 'the watercooler', where the level of tolerance for ranting seems to be higher.

This sort of he-said-that-she-said-that-the-good-book-says stuff gets people riled up to no good end. I say we let this partner post for himself, rather than take his experiences or his impressions of those experiences as the truth.

[inquiry]

melviss666, on Dec 21 2006, 02:53 PM, said:

I think it's sad you see cynicism behind every remark. I think, for the most part, the cheating is HYSTERICAL, let me refresh YOUR cynical memory on that, bud. I've been a certified director nearly 25 years, a certified teacher for 22 years, & have played pro off & on about the same. My face-to-face pard has most excellent credentials. We KNOW when people are cheating & we KNOW when we plain get beat, there's a difference. I, during my tenure at ebridge, was asked by Benny to help him catch cheats, which sadly, they gave up on. Maybe because they knew they were selling out to another company? All I said was the instances of cheating have definitely gone up since ebridge & zone folded, & I don't see how you could possibly deny that, but, it would be lovely to see it under a little more control.

I can deny it because, for one thing, zone has NOT FOLDED. Please, try to get your facts correct. Currently (right now) there are 2299 players playing bridge in the MSN Zone. If you can't get something as simple as whether the zone bridge site is closed right, who is going to trust your view with more complicated issues like cheating? I suspect you recall the annoucnement that the zone bridge site was closing, but the free bridge site lives on.

Second, I love you creditials and that of your partner. You must be truely wonderful players who see all and know all. The rest of us, including numerous gold star yellows who investigate cheating allegations must be totally blind and unknowing. Despite the advantage of very nice tools to investigate every cheating allegation quickly and effectively.

As I said earlier. Cheating occurs on the BBO, as it does on all other online sites. It is a fact of life. There is a number of different levels of cheaters. Those who are stupid about it (they are caught quickly), those who only do it occassionally (they are harder to nail down), and those who are extremely smart about it (they tend to fall into the suspected but not proven category). There are those who self kibitz and never misquess a two way finessee and alway drop singleton king offside. There are those that only can see their partners hand, so while their bidding is contorted, their play show no knowledge of the opponents hand.

But we will keep this simple. I will send you email all the hands you played against the last 10 BBO opponents you have faced (I have access to every hand played on BBO by you). Out of those 10 players, you look at the bidding and play, and write up for me (not for this forum) the proof you find that they are cheating. Clearly not all of the 10 will be cheating, so lets see if you can find evidence of even 5 (half cheating). I suggest the answer will be no. Oh you might say there was break in tempo, and taking advantage of slow bidding (can't see that in the hand record, one way or the other), what we are talking about here is proof in the "bids and plays". If you like, I can limit this to team game or main room so you will have more hands to look at instead of tournaments, but you said you don't play in tournaments anyway, so these probably will not be toureys anway. Let me know if you are up for the challenge.

In otherwords you have made some outrageous claims (virtually everyone cheats-- well that was your expert partners claim which you quote), and that you can recongnize cheating when you see it. This is a chance to demonstrate it... and as a side effect, should you prove someone you played against was cheating, as a yellow I will forward the proof to abuse and get the person banned. How can you turn down this offer?

[inquiry]

After reading uday's response (sadly after my reply above), I moved this to the water cooler. My last post was not meant to fan the flames, but is a put up or shut up reply. Of course, the original poster might not accept my review of his proof of cheating as impartial, but we shall see.

[pclayton]

edited

[sceptic]

Sorry Ben, I do not have your patience and I can't be bothered to be nice about this

melvis, I like your credentials, they are most impressive, I think there is an easy way to stop everyone cheating , design a cheat proof site yourself, you failed in ebridge and you are doing nothing in BBO except whinging, I am impressed by your personal characrteristics. Yawn,

you belonged to two sites you never liked and you think swan is full of cheats and now you think BBO has lost control of cheating. I think you are quite sad and I would happily accept a BBO ban for calling you a miserable old git, who needs to get a life

[Al_U_Card]

As someone who has dropped a stiff king maybe 5 times in 25,000 declared hands of bridge (and lost to at least 50 stiff kings during that time) I get them when I have no choice and that is my only chance.....but I can't guarantee that I see all of the "only chance" situations. Should I get called for cheating when I do?

If cheating is on-going, I have yet to see a flagrant or blatant example in perhaps 25,000 hands of on-line bridge of which maybe 15,000 were on the zone freebie site. I have seen quite a bit of excellent bridge and a bit too much atrocious bridge but......I have only myself to blame for that.....lol

I have played with a lot of random pards online, (maybe 500 or so, of which 25 or so have managed to put up with me and become "regs") none of whom have ever even come close to trying to get me to "help" them illegally.

The whole notion is, at best, ridiculous and at worst, pretty much a waste of time....nuff said by me

ps. is a flamefest a christmas thing like a yulelog?

[1eyedjack]

It is my observation of playing F2F bridge that some really extraordinary things happen at the F2F table. Quite inexplicable. The suggestion of cheating does not arise, because everyone can see that there was (practically) no way that cheating could have occurred, and so we naturally look to other explanations for the event. We might never come up with an explanation that is immune to logical dissection, but even so we do not jump on the cheating trail, at least unless a pattern emerges and even then we would attempt to discern the mechanism.

The problem with online games is that cheating becomes a more plausible explanation for odd results, in light of which it inevitably becomes (in the mind of some, at least) the front runner explanation, where exactly the same antics would not have caused a stir in a F2F game.

[sceptic]

Quote

sorry, but you are not the best player in the world,

I hope you gathered some evidence for that assertion and you are qualified to make that statement

[inquiry]

excellent post justin!!! I will add that ebridge was sold to Worldwinner in summer/fall of 2004, and then worldwinner killed off its bridge product (I think called worldwinner bridge) early in 2006. So in fact, not only did teh zone not close, the ebridge characterization could be a little off as well.

[csdenmark]

Please put up your identity and your credentials melviss666. I am sure we are all very interested to be able to track your record.

[matmat]

melviss666, on Dec 21 2006, 02:07 PM, said:

he said that virtually everyone he played against, teams & main club, no ACBL tourneys, was cheating. This is a person with near 10,000 ACBL mp's & he plays pro as often as not. Get my drift?

actually, no, i don't get your drift.

are you saying that all his opponents, including, possibly, some of the forum posters, were cheating?

is that an accusation? You do know what various bridge organizations think of unfounded accusations, right?

why doesn't one of you write to abuse about it instead of ranting on here? You can even name names there, heck, you might even do something useful for the community, had that been your original inclination...

Hollow accusations like this do nothing to benefit this site nor do they add anything useful to the general discussion.

Also, if you feel that "everyone" is cheating, might i suggest you find a different place to play bridge so as to not have to experience this unfortunate circumstance?

and 10,000 masterpoints. wow... that's a lot. can he turn them in for a boat? they're like credit card points, right? the more you spend the more you get?

[pbleighton]

"Melviss666" may be a troll who's having fun with us.

"666"... you devil, you!

Peter

[bglover]

Quote

I think it's sad you see cynicism behind every remark. I think, for the most part, the cheating is HYSTERICAL, let me refresh YOUR cynical memory on that, bud. I've been a certified director nearly 25 years, a certified teacher for 22 years, & have played pro off & on about the same. My face-to-face pard has most excellent credentials. We KNOW when people are cheating & we KNOW when we plain get beat, there's a difference. I, during my tenure at ebridge, was asked by Benny to help him catch cheats, which sadly, they gave up on. Maybe because they knew they were selling out to another company? All I said was the instances of cheating have definitely gone up since ebridge & zone folded, & I don't see how you could possibly deny that, but, it would be lovely to see it under a little more control.

I have played on BBO almost from its inception. I quite possibly have played more hands here than anyone. If not I am certainly in the top three.

During my long tenure here I have been cheated and I have seen some cheating while just kibbing. I would never attempt to say cheating is non-existent on BBO.. Nor would anyone else.

However, let me say that the cheating is not that frequent that someone can’t find a new table in a hurry with all honest players. Indeed, if you avoid tourneys (where you are locked in for 12 hands) it’s quite easy to find an honest game… and a diligent person can find a good, honest game.

However… some people see cheats in their sleep. We all know a few of them around here. People who can’t distinguish between someone who is maybe a bad player and has fixed them or maybe is a bad player on their own and too arrogant to not recognize a good play when it slaps them upside the head.

The vast majority of cheating accusations fall firmly into one of those two categories. Listing yourself as a pro and a teacher doesn’t qualify you in anyway to assess YOURSELF. There are some famously fatuous bridge players in the world who believe they are gods when they are, in fact, not even intermediate players. And, these people seem to be the ones who THINK they’ve been cheated the most.

BBO can become a very dangerous place if a few loose cannons decide to besmirch the general population and imply the vast majority cheat.

You know how they used to stop cannons from going off too soon? They’d STUFF A SOCK IN IT.

[mike777]

Funny enough my perception of cheating or maybe cheating in ACBL games changed alot after the non kibitzer rule went into effect..As I say it was only my perception based on little evidence.

[glen]

melviss666, on Dec 21 2006, 07:53 PM, said:

We KNOW when people are cheating & we KNOW when we plain get beat

He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!

He's making a list
Checking it twice
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice
Santa Claus is coming to town

[the hog]

pbleighton, on Dec 22 2006, 09:24 AM, said:

"Melviss666" may be a troll who's having fun with us.

"666"... you devil, you!

Peter

I don't think so Peter; there have been similar posts in the pasts by this person. I suspect it is just someone who believes he is a legend in his own lifetime. I'd really like to KNOW how he KNOWS people have been cheating, but I guess we'll never find out. Wow, 10k points - can I buy some of those?