[Trinidad]

I used to play a lot of face to face bridge with my wife. Of course I am biased, but I think that she is a very handy player. She can push opponents around and make IMPs appear out of nowhere. Despite the fact that she was playing with me, we were quite succesful as a pair.

Then the children were born. Since one of us needs to take care of the kids, we didn't have the possibility to play together. But then we thought of BBO! We could play together while the kids were sleeping!

Obviously, we wanted to be open about playing from the same room. We decided to choose two matching logins to make it obvious that we belong together. I remember that the first couple that we came up with was 'Simon' and 'Garfunkel' but 'Simon' was already taken. I think the next couple was 'Sonny' and 'Cher' or something like that but that didn't work either. Neither did 'Bill' and 'Hillary'. But 'Trinidad' and 'Tobago' weren't taken yet, so we never needed to try 'Minneapolis' and 'St. Paul'.

We put in our profiles that we were playing from the same room and the reason for it. The effect was that people came to our table, played two tricks and left. Every now and then they would play a full hand and the 'C word' would come out. Playing bridge together on BBO was simply impossible.

So, in that respect, BBO couldn't give us what we had hoped for. That is not a complaint, since BBO did give us a lot of other things. Though my wife rarely plays bridge anymore, we really enjoy watching VuGraph from time to time. And we used to practice our bidding system.

The good part: About once a year, typically when the grandparents are visiting from abroad, I get to play with her at my local bridge club (where I normally play with another partner). There is always a pair who doesn't know her and thinks that it is so nice of me to introduce my wife to bridge. They will tell her how lovely it is to meet her. She will reply that she thinks it is lovely to be there... and then she proceeds to kick ass.

Rik

[Old York]

A top scoring regular player in my swiss pairs once took a totally unnecessary finesse with KQTxx in dummy and Axx in hand, sure enough he found Jxxx in second hand. The dummy was not short of entry cards
He was certainly a good enough player to lead to King, back to Ace and then take the marked finesse, so why finesse at the first opportunity?

I will never be convinced that this play (and many others) was not double-dummy, he always has kibs at his table.... but it is impossible to prove that he is cheating

I have banned kibs ever since, and this player immediately stopped registering
I only wish that I were allowed to name this player. He plays in most free tournies that allow kibs, often winning with 83% etc

Tony

[inquiry]

Old York, on May 22 2009, 10:52 AM, said:

A top scoring regular player in my swiss pairs once took a totally unnecessary finesse with KQTxx in dummy and Axx in hand, sure enough he found Jxxx in second hand. The dummy was not short of entry cards
He was certainly a good enough player to lead to King, back to Ace and then take the marked finesse, so why finesse at the first opportunity?

I will never be convinced that this play (and many others) was not double-dummy, he always has kibs at his table.... but it is impossible to prove that he is cheating

I have banned kibs ever since, and this player immediately stopped registering
I only wish that I were allowed to name this player. He plays in most free tournies that allow kibs, often winning with 83% etc

Tony

There is nothing stopping you from send his name to abuse at bridgebase dot com or giving it in private to any of the normal yellows (not to a vugraph yellow of course).

[1eyedjack]

Old York, on May 22 2009, 04:52 PM, said:

He was certainly a good enough player to lead to King, back to Ace and then take the marked finesse, so why finesse at the first opportunity?

Heh. One thing that really stretches the imagination, is if he is a good enough player to play King, Ace and finesse, then he would be a good enough player to play it the same way even in the foreknowledge of the layout.

[mtvesuvius]

1eyedjack, on May 22 2009, 11:59 AM, said:

Old York, on May 22 2009, 04:52 PM, said:

He was certainly a good enough player to lead to King, back to Ace and then take the marked finesse, so why finesse at the first opportunity?

Heh. One thing that really stretches the imagination, is if he is a good enough player to play King, Ace and finesse, then he would be a good enough player to play it the same way even in the foreknowledge of the layout.

Good player, idiotic person. Very simple

[jonottawa]

I think BBO requires like 10 examples or something like that before they'll take action. If I suspected someone was cheating, I'd bring up their last month, find 10 examples, and then unleash the hounds. But I have more free time on my hands than most.

[pirate22]

in the good old days E bridge now defunct had real problems "Cheaters" cash tourneys were scrapped

#recently on bbo i kept freezing up example during a bidding sequence with my pard ---my pard seemed very slow in sequence-and it got round to me and i bid 4n/t for aces,and after opps pass my pard again seemed slow-so i punched in test nothing came up in chat-so punched in test again---again nothing so i assumed i was frozen and exited the site to regain entry-this took 5 mins and on my return,resumed the game with my pard 3/4 hands later

I then recieved a e-mail from my pard stateing that the opps suggested that test was a codified sigtnal (Cheating),is there another way to check if one is frozen@

[Old York]

pirate22, on May 23 2009, 01:04 AM, said:

I then recieved a e-mail from my pard stateing that the opps suggested that test was a codified sigtnal (Cheating),is there another way to check if one is frozen@

This is just pure paranoia, ignore it
It is laughable and very sad

but, I would like to know why sometimes we get red dots, why sometimes freeze and sometimes total crash, especially when internet connection is perfect

Tony

[NickRW]

Old York, on May 23 2009, 01:21 PM, said:

but, I would like to know why sometimes we get red dots, why sometimes freeze and sometimes total crash, especially when internet connection is perfect

Your connection to the internet may be perfect, but the route from your ISP to BBO's data centre isn't necessarily in the same shape.

Nick

[Feegle]

If I suspect I'm 'frozen' I look at the number of players who are on BBO. This number (showing how many people are logged on to BBO) is on the right of my screen (Windows version). It constantly changes as players arrive/leave the site.
If that number freezes I know I'm in trouble.

[Benoit35]

When you land in an impossible contract, just type "Sorry partner, I missorted your hand."

That ought to quell all the suspicions.

[pirate22]

More fuel to the fire----especially the husband and wife that play in the same Bedroom:) Naughty naughty-What a wonderfull way to play bridge,how you both can concentrate defies belief:)

I am pirate 22 and because of passwords,my wife is pirate 44,my wife is a beginner,but now, intermediate.through watching me play-i refuse to teach her,but she has picked up things----------occasionally she is in the bedroom on her laptop, im in my office, and we play,but never call out,or ask any questions,for her to progress. We have played live club bridge, in the early days,and thought i would go mad with her bidding or defence.But the penny dropped.
There is no object in cheating,where does it get one-it's a mind game,and a pleasure Thank you BBO for this facilty

regards to all

[Oof Arted]

Feegle, on May 25 2009, 04:37 AM, said:

If I suspect I'm 'frozen' I look at the number of players who are on BBO. This number (showing how many people are logged on to BBO) is on the right of my screen (Windows version). It constantly changes as players arrive/leave the site.
If that number freezes I know I'm in trouble.

good tip feegle

[paulg]

Old York, on May 23 2009, 01:21 PM, said:

pirate22, on May 23 2009, 01:04 AM, said:

I then recieved a e-mail from my pard stateing that the opps suggested that test was a codified sigtnal (Cheating),is there another way to check if one is frozen@

This is just pure paranoia, ignore it
It is laughable and very sad

but, I would like to know why sometimes we get red dots, why sometimes freeze and sometimes total crash, especially when internet connection is perfect

Tony

Your internet connection is never perfect, it is just in a usable state of failure.

[Oof Arted]

The main problem with 'Cheats' is there always will be those whose grasp of the game is that they cannot win with any certainty so they will cheat UNTIL caught out.

I know of 2 very very ethical couples who play online from the same address However they woud never ever consider cheating and both pairs are good enough to hold their own in f2f competitions

[hotShot]

If we assume that 1 in 100 players is a cheat, than each of the honest 99 players will see the remaining 99 player as suspects although only 1 is a cheat and 98 are innocent.
Since the honest player have to play with suspects (since they suspect anyone) they are biased and will interpret anything unusual as cheating.
This leads to the impression that cheating is a far bigger problem than it actually is.

[TimG]

ggwhiz, on May 17 2009, 06:00 PM, said:

My problem is not so much to avoid the cheating that does go on, but how to declare and prove that you are honest despite playing with the ability to cheat.

You will not be able to prove that you are honest. I think it is really that simple.

I found the $2 remark funny.

[kaydea]

I have played at tables where I was sure opps were cheating, it is almost impossible to prove though. Furthermore cheaters don't have to be playing from the same location, I was in a game not so long ago where one op asked the other "is your webcam turned on?" I was flabberghasted and left the table. In the end its about integrity, I can't see any satisfaction at all in winning by cheating, its akin to filling in the sqares in a crossword puzzle with all the answers in front of you, it requires no intelligence at all.

[Oof Arted]

kaydea, on Jun 12 2009, 09:31 AM, said:

I have played at tables where I was sure opps were cheating, it is almost impossible to prove though. Furthermore cheaters don't have to be playing from the same location, I was in a game not so long ago where one op asked the other "is your webcam turned on?" I was flabberghasted and left the table. In the end its about integrity, I can't see any satisfaction at all in winning by cheating, its akin to filling in the sqares in a crossword puzzle with all the answers in front of you,


[B]        it requires no intelligence at all.

[B]

I think you have hit on the main reason they cheat

[waubrey]

It seems to me that by cheating what you really do is cheat yourself because if you win you can't have any sense of accomplishment.