[inquiry]

Jlall, on Dec 22 2006, 12:37 PM, said:

inquiry, on Dec 22 2006, 12:06 PM, said:

To the best of my knowledge, I have been accused of cheating twice

Dude... I think I've been accused of cheating twice in the last week haha

Well, since I seldom make a winning play or call, there is seldom reasons for people to accuse me. Come and join me as a mediocre player by bidding worse and playing worse Justin, and the cheating allegations will decrease.

[akhare]

Jlall, on Dec 22 2006, 12:37 PM, said:

inquiry, on Dec 22 2006, 12:06 PM, said:

To the best of my knowledge, I have been accused of cheating twice

Dude... I think I've been accused of cheating twice in the last week haha

Sorry, but couldn't resist the following pun:

Any sufficiently advanced expert play is indistinguisable from cheating (to novices) (with apologies to "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" )...

[matmat]

wayne_lv said:

I agree that cheating is a serious problem for online bridge and only a small amount of cheating can make the game all but unplayable.  Only 1 pair cheating out of 16 pairs that play a board in the Main Room is enough to spoil the results.
One pair cheating in a tournament can also spoil the results for all other pairs.

The cheating does not have to occur at YOUR table to affect your results.  A pair at another table sitting in your direction and cheating - bidding and making an off odds game or slam can cost you plenty in the scoring.

heh. if you're actually paying attention to your "results" in the BBO main room you're already making a mistake. Comparing your score to the field is (with all due respect to BBO management and the good players on BBO) just plain wrong. I don't have numbers for this, but I'd guess that a quarter of the scores for each board are fouled due to stupid things like disconnects, lazy claims, lack of agreements in partnerships, misclicks, declarer/defender distraction, spite, drunkenness etc. (i am sure i left some stuff out)

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I have some suggestions that might dramatically reduce cheating.
1. Prohibit kibbing entirely in duplicate scored games ... tournaments, teams matches, open room games .. totally.  If someone wishes to follow the play of another player it can be done via My Hands after the board is played.  In the case of tournaments, all boards are posted and available for review shortly after the tournament is finished.  Sure this is not in real time, but that is the point. 

what a remarkably bad idea. let's punish the 99.9% of people that don't cheat and take away from their enjoyment. Kibbing is social, kibbing allows you to ask questions of other kibs regarding plays/bids etc that allow you to improve your own game, kibbing allows you to make fun of players (when they deserve it -- or not), kibbing allows you to ask the players about choices they made when you don't understand them, again, I'm sure I am leaving them out. Seems to me you want to turn the MBC into some sort of rigid, stuck up, unfriendly place, just like most f2f clubs seem to be, with the grumpy old men and the fierce old ladies occupying the various seats, snarling at anyone that happens to walk by.

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2. Modify the program so that the dummy CANNOT see the ops hands during the play, no matter what the settings are.  The dummy guiding the declarer as to which way to finesse and when to drop stiffs is probably the most common method of cheating by "casual" cheaters.  This would also put a stop to the annoying cry of the dummy to his partner to CLAIM when it is not apparent to players with less than total information that a claim is in order.

I think you are exhibiting a total lack of faith in the majority of humanity. This is almost paranoid. I do agree that it is rude for dummy to shout things like "CLAIM" or "???????????????" or such, I don't think hiding opps hands would stop this behaviour. I do have a different theory about what might be going on here, but i think i might be a little controversial and somewhat insulting to some, so i'll reserve it to myself for now.

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Ops are consistently bidding and making small percentage games and slams.  Unusual leads occur often and seem to "magically" hit partner's unbid suit.  An unusually high number of close doubles and redoubles that succeed.

And yes, all of these things do occur in bridge even when nobody is cheating.  But not for 50 boards and definitely not for 1000 boards.  I have observed records of players that never make a bad judgement call for over 1000 boards and never is that player a star player.  Star players are far better than us average hackers, but they are far from perfect in judgement situations. 

Are you sure they're small percentage games?
Is it possible that these are people who have a much better grasp of cardplay than bidding?
Is it possible that they are good at recognizing "the only" chance to bring in a contract and play for it?
Is it possible that you just selectively remember these low percentage games as opposed to all the other normal contracts they play?
Is it possible that they have a different idea of opening leads?
Is it possible that your auction is so revealing that it makes it clear to either lead the implied p's suit or it makes it clear that to lead one of your own suits would be suicidal?
Is it possible that they are making bids and plays that are beyond your grasp?

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If a player is suscpected of cheating, a quick trip to My Hands and a look at the past month's results for that player can often be very revealing.  A win rate at IMP of 1 or more IMP per board.  An average MP score of over 55% for a large number of boards is also very suspect.  Most often cheaters using 2 computers will play with only one "partner".  I would like to think that a screening program could be written to mine the hand archives for extreme results that could flag potential cheaters for surveillance.

I think as ben points out, scores are a function of your opponents. so if playing against "weaker" pairs is cheating... oh my...
also, there are plenty of non-starred players that are better than many of the stars, and you might not realize this. And, as has been pointed out many times in this thread -- just because you don't understand a play doesn't make it "cheating"
Now, there are ways to raise some red flags (if two players are playing from the same IP, for example) but again, that would still be an unfounded accusation and would only lead to discrimination against that pair with no obvious grounds.

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And yes, it is true that you can suspect cheating and review hundreds of hands and rarely find conclusive proof from the hand records.  But patterns of consistent off odds bidding and play show one of 2 things:  The player is either psychic and should not be on BBO but in Las Vegas breaking the town or that player is cheating.
BTW,  since nobody has even broke one casino, let along the entire town, I can only conclude that psychic powers relating to cards does NOT EXIST.

the psychic powers, of which you seem so afraid, are most likely just superior (or perhaps inferior) hand analysis skills. Maybe they saw you fidget at the table? maybe your partner tanked before following low to a card? maybe the auction told them something that you don't realize?

anyhow. pointing fingers and calling everyone cheaters is vaguely reminiscent of Salem, MA, a few hundred years ago.

[the saint]

Jlall, on Dec 22 2006, 05:37 PM, said:

inquiry, on Dec 22 2006, 12:06 PM, said:

To the best of my knowledge, I have been accused of cheating twice

Dude... I think I've been accused of cheating twice in the last week haha

I'm clearly not trying hard enough then!!

Why do some people take things far far far too seriously? People will think they can see anything if they look hard enough for it.

[Al_U_Card]

Perhaps if the tweekers and the twiddlers and the whiners would go away, we could just play some enjoyable bridge on this, the best bridge site on the net.

[jikl]

After reading the posts in the thread Ben cited, it really brings to light what I read in Cathy Chua's book "Fair Play or Foul? Cheating Scandals in Bridge". The worst thing about public accusations is that it is impossible to prove your innocence. Sure you might do it in a court of law, but the fact is every single player that has heard that you were reported for cheating will consider you a cheat for life.

I still remember always not sorting my cards against one opponent because someone mentioned he was a slotter once. (Slotting being watching where the cards come from in the hand to determine suit lengths and strengths etc) And this was from one comment, I did this for years against him because of one idle comment.

Cheating accusations must be private and to people that will never say a word to anyone about it unless it can be proved conclusively. We live in a litigious world where false accusations can be costly, even Culbertson settled out of court to someone he accused of cheating, but this is less well known.

Sean

[pigpenz]

hmmm...... i had a hand the other day where me and one other inidvidual were the only 2 people to go down out of 22 tables playing the same contract. Were the other 20 tables cheating? I dont think so. In bridge there are alot of forks in the road and what makes one better than another is open to discussion. I have seen numerous hands where people handle their card combinations incorrectly...does that mean they are cheating or just careless?

[pigpenz]

jikl, on Dec 22 2006, 06:44 PM, said:

Cheating accusations must be private and to people that will never say a word to anyone about it unless it can be proved conclusively. We live in a litigious world where false accusations can be costly, even Culbertson settled out of court to someone he accused of cheating, but this is less well known.

Sean

looked at what happened to the Duke Lacrosse players that were accussed of rape. If they are innocent their lives have been ruined forever.

[Wayne_LV]

   

[pbleighton]

That's quite an attitude you've got there, Wayne

Peter

[glen]

Wayne_LV, on Dec 23 2006, 04:47 PM, said:

Every word or phrase is taken out of context

Do you really believe this - that every word is taken out of context?

[hrothgar]

Wayne_LV, on Dec 23 2006, 07:47 PM, said:

I mentioned a program to flag potential cheaters and some of you go off into how impossible such a program would be to program.  Not true... all would be needed would be to periodically check the average scores for players and look for only 3 things.  1.  Is the average per board > 1 IMP or MP averages > 58% (pick a number) AND 2. does the player play with the same partner over 80% (again pick a number) of the boards.  If the answer to all 3 of those is yes and 3. the player has played over 1000 boards in the past month, I guarantee you that player is cheating in some fashion.

How can I make such a statement?

The element of luck is so HUGE in the game of bridge that it is impossible for the world's best players to beat any experience partnership (note I did not say worst players or even average players) by such a margin as I stated above over that number of boards.

Gotta love these types of definitive statements.
It gives us something specific that we can test...

You might want to take a gander at the Butler rankings that are produced for major teams events (The Bermuda Bowl, the European Championships, that sort of thing). You can find these quite easily by looking through the Daily Bulletins.

Its not uncommon to see pairs averaging well over +1 board per match over the course of 300+ boards. I've seen scores as high as +1.65. I'm quite sure that this isn't the record.

Admittedly, 300+ boards isn't a thousand. Then again, Asymptotic Normality is pretty powerful. I doubt that increasing your sample size from 300 to 1000 is likely to matter all that much.

More important: One would hope that the standard of play at the Bermuda Bowl is a bit more consistent than what you find here on BBO. I'd argue that the best players on BBO are just as skilled as the best players in the Bermuda Bowl. Easy claim to make when you have Versace, Helgemo, Hamman, Martel and the like playing in both environments.

The bottom end of the distribution... Thats another story. We all know that the Bermuda Bowl has its share of weak teams. But they're still a hell of a lot better that the rank novices that you find playing on BBO.

If Versace and Lauria can average +1.65 IMPs per board over the course of a Bermuda Bowl, I'm quite sure that people are capable of averaging +1 IMP per board here on BBO.

[1eyedjack]

Wayne_LV, on Dec 23 2006, 05:47 PM, said:

I mentioned a program to flag potential cheaters and some of you go off into how impossible such a program would be to program.  Not true... all would be needed would be to periodically check the average scores for players and look for only 3 things.  1.  Is the average per board > 1 IMP or MP averages > 58% (pick a number) AND 2. does the player play with the same partner over 80% (again pick a number) of the boards.  If the answer to all 3 of those is yes and 3. the player has played over 1000 boards in the past month, I guarantee you that player is cheating in some fashion.

How can I make such a statement?

The element of luck is so HUGE in the game of bridge that it is impossible for the world's best players to beat any experience partnership (note I did not say worst players or even average players) by such a margin as I stated above over that number of boards.

I believe this post to be flawed on many levels, but one critical flaw stands out a mile to me. And I am not a programmer or statistitian, but have played a bit of bridge in my time, online and offline.

The element of luck is indeed HUGE on any individual hand. As long as you are not playing Rubber scoring, the element is somewhat lessened by the fact that there are (typically) 15 or so other tables playing the same cards. Even then there remains a considerable contribution of luck to your result on any hand. However, the element of luck over a population of 1000 boards is minute.

Consistently to achieve a high average over 1000 boards cannot be ascribed to luck. It must be ascribed either to cheating or skill.

If I play with a regular partner I might be more suspect as a cheat, purely on the grounds that the greater the number of conspirators required to be involved in a conspiracy to cheat, so the potential for exposure is increased and the disincentive to embark on it.

But if I play with a regular partner I would also expect the benefits of a regular partnership to be reflected in my results. As a (ahem) skillful player myself I would tend to form a regular partnership only with another skillful player, thereby doubling up on the contribtion of skill to the result achieved. A considerable number of my opposing partnerships will not be regular and may well not be so skillful.

The entire hypothesis rests on the assumption, expressed in his post, that the tallied scores are achieved AGAINST "experienced partnerships". And yet the quality of the opposition is not stated in the three statistics that are suggested as providing a measure of the likelihood of cheating.

Take a skillful, regular partnership who plays 1000 hands together on BBO against randomly selected opponents and I would be surprised if they did NOT achieve and average of more than 1 IMP per board. That is also my observation of offline games where cheating is not the forefront of explanations for the result.

[Elianna]

Wayne_LV, on Dec 23 2006, 08:47 AM, said:

... all would be needed would be to periodically check the average scores for players and look for only 3 things.  1.  Is the average per board > 1 IMP or MP averages > 58% (pick a number) AND 2. does the player play with the same partner over 80% (again pick a number) of the boards.  If the answer to all 3 of those is yes and 3. the player has played over 1000 boards in the past month, I guarantee you that player is cheating in some fashion.

This is patently untrue. I mainly play with one partner, and it's usually against partnerships that are less practiced than ours is, or with beginners that we're helping out, and thus we average over 1 imp a board. We haven't played thousands of boards in the last month, though, mainly because of vacations, but I still take exception to this characterization of yours. And further, I bet it's not just Adam and I, but many established partnerships have the same experience.

Also, you seem to not understand the difference between kibbitzing a live match, and discussing it with your fellow kibbitzers, and looking over hands in hand records. The first is lively and exciting. The second is rather stale, boring, and frankly rather lonely. It's the difference of seeing a movie in a theater, and seeing it on DVD.

ETA: 1eyedjack seemed to say the same thing as I did, but I missed it. Sorry.

[Wayne_LV]

   

[matmat]

I was gonna do some work or play some bridge, but this might just be more entertaining

Wayne_LV said:

I get a real insight into bridge player's mentality everytime I ever post to one of these threads.

Implied insult #1. what "insight" is this, exactly? I'm curious.

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Every word or phrase is taken out of context and so many of you take whatever anyone says as a personal attack.

Okay. what was taken out of context? and note that your first sentence wasn't a personal attack at all, it just appears to be an attack on "bridge player mentality" Lo and behold, most of us here are bridge players. Coincidence?

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Let me try to clairfy what I was trying to say, please.

cups face in hand a-la John Stuart - "go on!"

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Is there cheating on BBO and all online gaming sites?  Of course, if there is an opportunity, some will always take advantage.

Are the majority of players cheating?  Of course not, but it only takes a small percentage to spoil the game and the site.  A mere 6.25% cheating would mean that on the average at least one score of the nomal 16 plays of EVERY board is skewed due to cheating.  If there is a really big swing, that one cheating pair can cost everyone sitting their direction 2-3 or more IMP.  Over a large number of boards that is SIGNIFICANT.

Accusing, or implying 1/16th of the population to be cheats is quite a position, don't you think. do you have any data at all to back this up? And as I mentioned before, there are many, many, many, many other factors that will contribute to someone's imp wins or losses much more than a simple incident of cheating. So, to that end, let's eliminate all the comparisons where someone playing was a novice, was distracted, was drunk. hmmm... wonder how we could do that. Ben -- do you think we could install breathalizers and/or IQ testing software on people's PCs?

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Can cheating be stopped?  Not as long as humans are involved.  Why do you think BBO only offers money games with GiBs as partners?  Why did BBO ban kibbing at ACBL tournaments?

Fair enough, but that doesn't mean we need to be paranoid about things either. if you see someone cheating -- report them. Screening everyone is a terribly unsavory attitude to take.

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But a few simple measures can be taken to REDUCE (NOT ELIMINATE) cheating.

...

The other is to prohibit all kibbing. Again that should not be a big deal to serious players.  The game is about playing well, not about impressing the peanut gallery. And for those that want to watch to learn, there are millions of hands on file at BBO MyHands that can be played out at your own pace.  For the social animals that cannot play without playmates in the sandbox, allow kibbing for rubber bridge and total points games.

yes. good. good. while we're at it, let's eliminate all fun as well. and goodness forbid anyone should actually crack a smile while playing. why, that would surely be an insult to the opponents and should be punished under zero tolerance. While we're at it, if someone smiles we could probably call the director and accuse them of cheating by tilting their lips upwards.

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I mentioned a program to flag potential cheaters and some of you go off into how impossible such a program would be to program.  Not true... all would be needed would be to periodically check the average scores for players and look for only 3 things.  1.  Is the average per board > 1 IMP or MP averages > 58% (pick a number) AND 2. does the player play with the same partner over 80% (again pick a number) of the boards.  If the answer to all 3 of those is yes and 3. the player has played over 1000 boards in the past month, I guarantee you that player is cheating in some fashion.

of course three coincidences remove reasonable doubt. I'm sure that would stand up in court real well.

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How can I make such a statement?

The element of luck is so HUGE in the game of bridge that it is impossible for the world's best players to beat any experience partnership (note I did not say worst players or even average players) by such a margin as I stated above over that number of boards.

Element of luck is HUGE?
if that were the case you'd have different people reach the semis and finals of all major events every time. not quite the case is it? and it seems much more so in poker. new random champ every year?

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Now before you strart pounding your keyboards in rage as what I am saying let me tell you how I know this to be true.  I am ( or was ) a computer programmer (I wrote the original World Series of Poker Simulation) and have a lot of experience doing monte carlo simulations and odds calculations for casinos and gaming companies.  I have run simulations of millions and millions of trails to test the probablilites of all kinds of propositions.  So when I say I detect a pattern of  bidding, leads, and plays that go against the odds, I know of what I speak.

Cheating has plagued the world of bridge at ALL levels, up to and including World Championship events,  since brdge was first played.  Why do you think they now employ screens and use bidding boxes?  Not to hide player's ugly faces or to allow handicapped players to play that cannot hear or speak.  These measures were taken to REDUCE cheating.  If you think otherwise, you are INCREDIBLY naiive.

A more direct insult (#2) this time. Forgive me, but i thought screens were there to protect ethical players from certain UI situations that might come up if they happen to, say, forget system or some such...

I need to find that link about on-line arguments -- especially that part about "holier than thou" method of writing posts

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And there is also the element of joke bids and suicide claims.  Between that and cheating, I suspect the game of online bridge will become totally unplayable within the foreseeable future.  If you enjoy a social crap shoot where the outcome is totally meaningless, HAVE AT IT.  I, for one, would prefer a better climate to play the game I love so well, and would  like to see measures taken to give serious and HONEST players a fair shake at enjoying the best game ever devised by mankind.

then start your own club, as was suggested above. Trying to "clean" up the MBC is pointless, firstly because you'll never catch all the cheats, secondly b/c the ones you do catch will figure out a way to come back and thirdly b/c it isn't the cheats that are spoiling the game.

IMO what will make the game unplayable are all the grumpy folk whose purpose seems to be to eliminate any sort of fun from the game and turn it into a deadly serious, closed, secret room affair.

[uday]

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1. Cheating does occur in bridge .. all bridge (not all players cheat)
2. Cheating can be reduced
3. Efforts should be made to reduce cheating wherever possible

We could (relatively easily) compute and post the (say, weekly IMP) averages.

I buy the logic that this will force the dumber perps up to the top, along with some innocent players. Ben (Inquiry) seems to use Pickett's BRBR program for this sort of analysis all the time.

I don't think the numbnuts who bid 7NXX and concede on opening lead are cheating. Usually, they're "just" being rude to their partner or occasionally the opponents.

The TD could & should, IMO protect the field from results like 7NXX in tourneys (I concede that some/many disagree). I dont think results like 7NXX matter in the MBC (they go both ways in the long run) but I concede that others may disagree.

What I'm mostly curious about is whether the IMP average could profitably be used to improve the game experience for us. Here are ways:


(assume every user's profile now contains either the imp average or "unknown" (insufficient data")

1. Just post it in each users profile

2. Table option to force people with a specific imp average type (too high, too low, unknown) to require permission , or to be blocked

3. Tourney hosting option to filter in/out people like this

Would this sort of thing achieve a better playing environment for the majority?

[matmat]

uday said:

(assume every user's profile now contains either the imp average or "unknown" (insufficient data")

1. Just post it in each users profile

2. Table option to force people with a specific imp average type (too high, too low, unknown) to require permission , or to be blocked

3. Tourney hosting option to filter in/out people like this

Would this sort of thing achieve a better playing environment for the majority?

I don't think so.

If anything it might drive the people outside the set lower bound to try to cheat to bring up their average, it might punish people who sometimes just play for the fun of it and not seriously and at other times watch every spot card, it would punish people who actually ARE good enough to get above the upper cutoff threshold without any shenanigans. The more scoring systems you introduce, the more incentive for cheating.