[bid_em_up]

Wayne_LV, on Dec 24 2006, 11:29 AM, said:

I prolly need bridge lessons, but you need to learn to read.

He ain't the only one.

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Let's deal with some facts:

1. A lady made a post stating there is cheating in online birdge
2. Perhaps she overstated the case
3. You immediately jumped on her case, obviously insulting her (reread her reply)

Melvis is male. She is a he. Lets try to keep our facts straight without jumping to conclusions. That seems to be a frequent problem of yours.

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4. I (fool that I am) read the thread with interest since I also feel cheating is  a real problem for all on line bride sites
5. You and others then immediately jumped on my case for every idea I proposed.
6. I (again fool that I am) attempted to explain why I made some of the statements I made.
7. You, in so many words, tell me I have no idea about what I speak and offer "proof to the contrary"
8. I refute your "proof" using the only database I have access to .. BBO MyHands

#5 Nobody has really jumped your case. They have again attempted to explain to you why what you suggest isnt necessarily an accurate way of analyzing this problem. You apparently have the misbelief that anyone who disagrees with you is attacking you.

I do understand what you intended your original point to be, however, which is why I have refrained from posting until now. I wont say that I agree with it, but I understand what you meant.

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10.  I have never said I WANT to win by 1 IMP per board, but I do want to know how others do it over 1000 boards or more.

Of course you do. Admit it. Everyone would like to win and win big.

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11. Now you tell me you will not give me any more names of players with such lofty win rates.

I'm sure Ben could provide this. However, BBO forum posting rules generally prohibit naming names especially where doing so could open a discussion about that particular person. The three Ben provided are fairly well known players and would be easy enough to find by yourself. As a BBO yellow, Ben is bound by certain rules which should prevent him from disclosing any further names. He really shouldnt have disclosed the first three, imo, but I understand his doing so since it was an attempt to help you understand how it might be possible for someone to maintain this sort of average and they are players that noone could possibly challenge about their ethics.

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12.  I think you will not because you cannot.

He will not because he cannot. You're absolutely right on this. He is prohibited from doing so by BBO rules. But not because he cant find any.

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I have only one more question and then I shall refrain from adding anymore posts to this ridiculous thread:

Gee, this sounds familiar.

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Is this forum for the exchange of ideas or is it a place where the frequent posters get their jollys trying to make other people look foolish?

This particular forum (The Water Cooler) isnt quite as strict regarding BBO policies about attacking others ideas. Noone has actually attacked you, only your idea. Try learning the difference.

(Side note to Ben or Moderator, why does this thread continue to update itself in the General Bridge Discussion forum after it was supposedly moved?)

[sceptic]

no one trys to make me look foolish, I can manage that all on my own

[Wayne_LV]

   

[hrothgar]

Wayne_LV, on Dec 24 2006, 08:39 PM, said:

Again I think BBO is the best thing since sliced bread.

Sliced bread sucks!

The ONLY proper way to eat bread is to rip crusty rolls into medium sized chunks, then dips these into home made soup. How can anyone who doesn't know the BASICS about bread deign to post on a complex topic like cheating?

In all seriousness, try to make it to the forum tournament next weekend. You might get to see people in a better light.

In any case, in the spirit of the season, I'll forgive the bread comments.

[jillybean]

yum

YAWN (to Wayne)

[csdenmark]

Wayne_LV, on Dec 24 2006, 07:39 PM, said:

I found the enemy and it was I

Then everything is fine and the thread and agony ends here.

I think you ought to be suspicious as this thread was moved. This is a duspin thread.

[1eyedjack]

Wayne_LV, on Dec 24 2006, 05:29 PM, said:

7. You, in so many words, tell me I have no idea about what I speak and offer "proof to the contrary"
8. I refute your "prooof" using the only database I have access to .. BBO MyHands

I have a small problem with these comments.

As you have access to only a very small proportion of the data that is available to Inquiry, your rebuttal of his "proof to the contrary" does not appear to hold water.

Are you suggesting that he manufactured his data? Simply because you do not have access to the data, the conclusion of which does not fit your needs?

That is quite a slur.

Well, you and I might not have access to the data, but I can assure you that Inquiry is not the only individual who has invested in BridgeBrowser, and it should be fairly trivial for others to check his data. No doubt if he went to the trouble and they backed him up you would accuse them all of a conspiracy.

[inquiry]

[quote name='Wayne_LV' date='Dec 24 2006, 11:29 AM']I have never said nor implied that I am a good player.  There are many things I have not said or implied for which you and others have made every effort to make me look a fool.
[/quote]
Ok. ok.. you have done it... you are going to get me to parse your comments to show you where you are wrong. I hate people who parse comments and now i am going to do it... damn.

I have never made an effort to make you look "a fool." I have stated reasons why your view is not going to be accepted by the bbo. This deals with punishing the many to try vainly try to reduce cheating (ban kibitzers, block seeing hands, etc). These were issues you raised.

Then I dealt with your view to use software tools to catch cheaters based upon average imps or average mp%. In fact, i have since pointed out that such a tool already exist, but that using it blindly (checking on everyone) seems wrong, and further, pointed out reasons why blindly trusting it to catch cheaters because "no one" can average 1 imp per board over 1000's of boards is wrong. How can I say this, because i have used it for similiar purposes and I know the weakness (and stregnths) of that approach.

If discussing such issues you raise make you feel like I am trying to make you "a fool" this is a problem you have. I addressed issues you raised in a straight-forward matter.

[quote]Let's deal with some facts:

1. A lady made a post stating there is cheating in online birdge[/quote]

Let's straighten out this "fact". First the player is not a lady, he is a bridge player that use to live in Atlanta Ga and now lives in another southern state. No one denied that there are cheaters on line, and certainly not me. As this link will show you ([url="http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=5910&view=findpost&p=48367"]changes in 2004[/url]), I am actively involved in catching and throwing cheaters out of the BBO. I know cheating has occurred, and is still occuring. Perhaps no one else knows as much about suspected and proven cheaters on BBO than me. And as I said in an earlier reply to you, no one is this thread is suggesting that cheating is not occuring.

[quote]2. Perhaps she overstated the case[/quote]

Perhaps (HE) overstated the case? You think??????? The statement was "virtually everyone he played against, teams & main club, to ACBL tourneys, was cheating."

For the record "virtually everyone" includes you and me, and all the other posters in this forum. Can you imagine why a negative response would happen in reply to such a statement?

[quote]3. You immediately jumped on her case, obviously insulting her (reread her reply)[/quote]

My immediate jump on "her" case was to, 1. Point out that cheating does occur, 2. Point out it is not possible everyone is cheating here or on the other sites "she mentioned", 3. Suggest if he was so worried about cheating to play against trusted friends, or similiar "solutions". 4. Pointed out the irony that "he" himself had been accused of cheating by a "good player" (gold star) so that maybe just being a good player doesn't mean you can be certain someone is cheating against you by looking at just the hands at the table in the heat of battle.

Was "she" insulted when I told "her" that she was wrong about the number of cheaters? Maybe. "She" called me "bud" and threw out some of "her" qualifications... and the fact the "she" KNOWS when she is being cheating. "She" even added that "she" was invited to help catch cheaters on e-bridge. Somehow, I doubt this last characterization (well, maybe that is strong, as I have invited you and "her" to help catch them on BBO as well, by reporting suspected cheaters to abuse).

I find it amazing peope get "insulted" when others disagree with them. So i offered him a carrot... to show me the proof of cheaters that played against him. I would even send him the hands in lin file format to do so. Not surprizingly, he didn't take me up on that. It was a 100% safe bet to do so. He would not have been able to proof the cheating for a variety of reasons that i will not go into.

[quote]4. I (fool that I am) read the thread with interest since I also feel cheating is  a real problem for all on line bride sites[/quote]

I suspect most people who read and respond to this thread also feel that cheating is something that needs to be addressed. How "real" the problem is, of course, open for debate. For you, the problem is so severe that you suggested a lot of changes to the software to help reduce it. For others, the pain of the changes are much worse than the "cheating problem".

No one would deny cheating occurs occurs.. the bbo itself banned kibitzers from the ACBL event to reduce it. Something i even mentioned in my first reply to you.

[quote]5. You and others then immediately jumped on my case for every idea I proposed.[/quote]

I will not speak for the "others". It seems they took exception to your "condencending tone". I addressed your points. I will address my responses to your post. In my first one, I said BBO is as much a social site as a bridge site, and that I am against banning kibitzers because of this, but that I "begrugding" accept banning them in some tournaments, but that banning them in main room would be too much. I then stated for the first time the problem with using 1 imp as a standard for cheating because of "self-selection" of opponents (which is where such a criteria for evidencd of cheating could be seriously flawed). That was it...

Second response was a statement that I don't like the concept of software trying to catch cheaters. Third respopnse was more in response to Uday's comment that I " seems to use Pickett's BRBR program for this sort of analysis all the time."

I pointed out that pickett's software will do everything you asked for and much more. That we can and do use it to find and either warn or punish people who are bidding disruptively (a week or two after the fact, however). I also point out the current rate of these numnut 7NTxx contracts is at most 1 per 10,000 hands (that was for all 7NTxx hands) and that many of these were serious contracts (in fact 71 made, and nearly 300 were down at most two).

I then pointed out that we do not use average imps or mp to catch cheaters, but rather continue to rely on reported cheaters for the same reason I give you here in this post... self-selectiion results in artificial distortion of average imps. If I paid fred to play 1000 hands against me, how well do you think he would do? He would probably beat me by well more than 1 imp per board. The software can not ferret out why someone is averaging high score, it just reports that they are. That is the flaw of using imp averages, something i tried to express to you several different ways

You said in your second post, "Every word or phrase is taken out of context and so many of you take whatever anyone says as a personal attack.". I defy you to go back to these first three responses of mine to your post and find any personal attack what so ever.

My fourth post to you tried to correct your mischaracterization that people responding in this thread don't think cheating occurs (earlier you said we all thought online bridge was pristine). In fact we all have agreed all along that cheating occurs. Despite this, despite everyone saying online cheating is a fact of life, you continue with such statements as "Am I totally off base here? Is there a sane person reading this thread that would agree that cheating does occur? ". We will return to this when we deal with your point 13 (I numbered it 13 for you, since you stopped at 12). But you take my responses as "jumping on you" for your ideas.. we will deal this jump concept under 13.

[quote]6. I (again fool that I am) attempted to explain why I made some of the statements I made.[/quote]

We all understood perfectly what you were suggestion and why. This may surprise you but you are hardly the first person to suggest not letting dummy see the other hands, not allowing kibitzers, or become more of a police state and proactively persuing cheaters. Others have been even more demonstrative than you, suggesting not allowing people with the same IP address to play together or to kibitz if one of them is playing in a tournament or the main room. There is nothing new in your suggestion. The reason you got negative response from many is exactly your attitude that we must not understand your view (are you the only sane one???). while you totally ignored the points others made. That is, the problem you are having with the forum members is that you refuse to consider (or even pay some minimal lip service) to their views when they say that aspects of the site they love would be destroyed by draconian efforts (that would be mostly futile anyway) to stop all cheating that you (and others) have suggested.

[quote]7. You, in so many words, tell me I have no idea about what I speak and offer "proof to the contrary"[/quote]

Well, I tried to prove your basic premise was flawed. Your premise was that no one could averge +1.0 imp/board over 1000 boards without hellp. So I show you the okbridge average of Benito Garrazo and his partner Dupont against okbridge opposition. They were playing at regular tables against an allstar cast (one can look at their opponents as well with bridgebrowser, not surprizingly, their opponents were whose-who of bridge). I then also provide you with three bbo user names. The hand records and averages are public domain and anyone (including you) can double check my statements by using the software.

I can also tell you that justin was being trurthful, as it is easy enough to check the average imp score of any player over any unit time. He in fact did average more than 1 imp/board in the past.

[quote]8. I refute your "prooof" using the only database I have access to .. BBO MyHands[/quote]

You didn't refute a thing. All you did was say that the three players i quoted only had less than 300 hands in the past month on myhands. I never said they did play 1000 hands in the last month. Winkle had played just over 2000 hands all time (well that is probably main room hands), it would be shocking if that included 1000 in the last 30 days.

[quote]9. You tell me I need to go play with novices so I can win by 1 IMP.[/quote]

Actually that was a rhetorical argument to try to drive home the point that average imps won is a function of more than just the ability of the player in question, but also his opposition. If a good player (ok, not you, any good player) would play only against bad players, he would average huge plus imp average. Did you know that there are players on the BBO who have played more than 1000 hands and average well below NEGATIVE 2 imps per board? Some less than NEGATIVE 3 imps per board? This is a concept you have failed to acknowledge and it is a deadly flaw in using sofware to catch cheaters.

[quote]10.  I have never said I WANT to win by 1 IMP per board, but I do want to know how others do it over 1000 boards or more.[/quote]

The do it by one or more of the following:
a - being much better than their opposition
b - playing with a limited number of partners with good agreements against pick up parnters with no agreements
c - they concentrate on each hand
d - sear luck of the draw of hands
e - they cheat

Note, cheating is not the only way.

[quote]11. Now you tell me you will not give me any more names of players with such lofty win rates.[/quote]

True, in fact, i am not going to respond to you again, because.......

[quote]12.  I think you will not because you cannot.[/quote]

......here you are publically calling me a liar. I have tried to treat your concerns and issues in a straight-foward and factual way. And this is your reply. Fine, so be it. But anyone with bridgebrowser can find loads of names that average more than 1 imp per board, it is not hard to do, the software has a feature to do this and the data is there for all to see.

[quote]I have only one more question and then I shall refrain from adding anymore posts to this ridiculous thread:[/quote]

Good because while i haven't said so earlier, i will say so now, I totally agree with the comments others have made about the tone of your comments, i have grown tired trying to be rational with you. And after publically calling me a liar, well, I would just as soon never deal with you again in any way.

[quote]13. (13 added by inquiry) Is this forum for the exchange of ideas or is it a place where the frequent posters get their jollys trying to make other people look foolish? It seems if a question is asked about a hand, the mood is ever sooooo helpful, but if a statement is made about a policy or practices, it is immediately attacked as if the poster were an infectious leper from another planet.[/quote]

It is a place to share ideas. You suggested several. These were,
1- that cheating on line is a huge problem
2- that one cheater on one board in the MBC can spoil the results
3- ban all kibitzers
4- don't let dummy see the other hands
5- no one can average +1 imp per board over 1000 boards without cheating

In response to this list, i addressed each one. Despite your characterization, everyone agrees cheating occurs, the diffrerence is most people here are more concerned about your solutions than they are about size of the cheating problem. This is something you have totally dismissed or not discussed in any of your replies other than eventuallly you gave up on the kibitzer ban. (how can people exchange ideas with you will not discuss their views?) Instead you characterize the view that your solutions are worse than the cheating by saying that we all think cheating does not occur. This shows you totally ignored the views of the others (since that was not their position).

Well, it is true that I never addressed the don't let dummy see the other hands or parnters hand. I would think in tournaments this fine, in main room it is overkill. But i find it amusing that you think dummy seeing the partners hand is the most common form of cheating.

I then discussed at legnth the concept of using software to screen for cheating. I told you the tools exist to do so but they are not used and why. I explained the flaws in the +1 imp/board approach. That doesn't mean imp average (or lehman) score can not be used to make a decision to seriously investigate a so-so claim of cheating. Nor does the flaw I mentioned mean that such a screening can not be successful. Almost everyone, if not everyone, who averaged greater than 2 imps per board over many many boards have been proven as cheating, as have many people not averaging +1 imp/board. I will further say that some people who use not to cheat, might start cheating, so that for the first 800 hands they were not cheating and doing very poorly, then discover ways to cheat, and do very well. The software we have can find these sudden improvements with ease.

Despite showing "proof" that it is possible to average +1 imp over even more than 1000 hands, you suggest that i didn't show such proof and that you "refuted" it. BS.

[quote]And oh yea, forget the names, I can find them if they are there all on my own, thank you.  And I have my own tools for analyizing the records as I find them.[/quote]

Good luck on that...

[mr1303]

A bit late to this discussion perhaps, but my personal view is that if other people want to cheat, as long as it isn't for money, who cares? I don't. If someone wants to beat me by cheating, it doesn't concern me in the slightest. Bridge isn't my life, and I play it solely for enjoyment.

However, if someone were to stop me from using MSN or something whilst I was playing, that would bother me.

[pigpenz]

mr1303, on Dec 24 2006, 07:41 PM, said:

A bit late to this discussion perhaps, but my personal view is that if other people want to cheat, as long as it isn't for money, who cares? I don't. If someone wants to beat me by cheating, it doesn't concern me in the slightest. Bridge isn't my life, and I play it solely for enjoyment.

However, if someone were to stop me from using MSN or something whilst I was playing, that would bother me.

some game interfaces do take over the windows environment so that nothing else can be used.

[the hog]

Wayne, a couple of points. Read mr1303's post above. He expresses the views of many posters. Why are you so fired up about cheating? Does it really matter to you that much? Why?

Secondly to remove dummy's right to see the opps hands removes one of the great pleasures of on line bridge. Looking at all 4 hands and seeing the line that partner takes to play a hand is a huge amount of fun, well for me anyway, and I suspect for many other on line players. Removing this would be a real shame.

I am somewhat surprised by your comment regarding bidding methods. I don't see the relevance of this to the cheating topic at all. Further, you are no doubt aware that not every method handles every hand type. You for example, mention weak jump shifts. Personally I regard them as an extremely poor method; there are far better uses for jump shifts imo. However if you like them, well and good for you. But what on earth does this have to do with the cheating debate?

By the way - if I was playing with my regular partner against random opponents, I would be disappointed not to finish up winning 1+ imps a board.

[csdenmark]

pigpenz, on Dec 25 2006, 03:00 AM, said:

mr1303, on Dec 24 2006, 07:41 PM, said:

A bit late to this discussion perhaps, but my personal view is that if other people want to cheat, as long as it isn't for money, who cares? I don't. If someone wants to beat me by cheating, it doesn't concern me in the slightest. Bridge isn't my life, and I play it solely for enjoyment.

However, if someone were to stop me from using MSN or something whilst I was playing, that would bother me.

some game interfaces do take over the windows environment so that nothing else can be used.

Difficult to believe this can be true. Maybe you have just forgotten to uncheck the box 'Always on top'.

[pigpenz]

csdenmark, on Dec 25 2006, 05:32 AM, said:

pigpenz, on Dec 25 2006, 03:00 AM, said:

mr1303, on Dec 24 2006, 07:41 PM, said:

A bit late to this discussion perhaps, but my personal view is that if other people want to cheat, as long as it isn't for money, who cares? I don't. If someone wants to beat me by cheating, it doesn't concern me in the slightest. Bridge isn't my life, and I play it solely for enjoyment.

However, if someone were to stop me from using MSN or something whilst I was playing, that would bother me.

some game interfaces do take over the windows environment so that nothing else can be used.

Difficult to believe this can be true. Maybe you have just forgotten to uncheck the box 'Always on top'.

no there are some games that still result to a DOS boxed environment when run on windows. this has nothing to do with the present BBO software but refers to some windows based games not BBO software. So if would be impossible to use other windows program when running these type of games. Most present day games dont leave the windows environment cause people want to multitask.

[sceptic]

Ben

Time for some stats, is this one of the top 10 growth posts of 2006, it seems to be taking off at gianormous proporttions

[Wayne_LV]

   

[hrothgar]

Wayne_LV, on Dec 26 2006, 12:35 AM, said:

This statement typifies your and other's attitudes toward ANYONE that posts in this forum that is not in the clique.

Good grief... The members of the BBO forums hardly constitutes a "clique". Ben and I rarely achieve a civilized discussion. The political threads on the watercooler have some real vitriol behind them. Almost the only thing that we've managed to agree about in recent memory is you.

In all seriousness, the reaction to your posts has been almost uniform and very negative. You might want to consider that the source of the problems has something to do with your own behaviour rather than projecting some grand conspiracy.

[Winstonm]

Just a suggestion - a guide that I use. If you are concerned about cheating, don't play. I have a regular partner who has somewhere around 40-60 players on his "friends" list, players who play well, are nice, and who we are certain have high ethics. When we play, we play against them.

The only time you have no control against whom you play is in a tournament, and the solution to that quandry is simple: if it bothers you, don't play.

As far as the +1 imp per board standard, I think you miss the boat in how well this game is played by some. It is much like the first time I saw a PGA golf tournament in person and realized that they did not play the same game that I played. The weakness is your argument is the 1000 deals - it is just over such large numbers where the true experts will have the biggest edge. Anyone is beatable over a short match, but over time and hand after hand after hand the differences show.

[Trysalot]

This comment I just saw is in my opinion one of the best I have seen after reading all the posts in this thread and others where Wayne makes his points in the same argumentative tone and without regard to the points made by others continues in the same vein over and over:

Brothgar: "In all seriousness, the reaction to your posts has been almost uniform and very negative. You might want to consider that the source of the problems has something to do with your own behaviour rather than projecting some grand conspiracy."

My compliments to Brothgar for saying what I believe many here are thinking as I am.

[bid_em_up]

I must be missing something. How does this:

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But i find it amusing that you think dummy seeing the partners hand is the most common form of cheating.

Dummy not being able to see partners hand, which I believe you have been advocating all along Wayne......equal this:

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Seeing opponent's hands provides the most readily accessible form of information that can be illegally used in the play of a bridge hand.

??

If you're advocating dummy not being able to see opponents hands, well, currently each person has that option available to them. Maybe the table host should be able to set it for his table as well. I, for one, dont see a reason for that option not to be available to the table host, and would support a suggestion such as this.

If you are actually advocating that dummy not being able to see partners hand.....I think most of us are going to feel that will not accomplish much to alleviate cheating, and it would be a major deterrent to others enjoyment of the game.

[Wayne_LV]