[Cascade]

[quote name='Winstonm' date='Oct 17 2009, 01:02 PM'] [quote name='The_Hog' date='Oct 16 2009, 06:53 PM'] [quote name='jjbrr' date='Oct 16 2009, 09:05 PM'] snipped

Rik [/QUOTE]
Did you read all the posts in the blog? Wolff does provide evidence. I can't believe you keep saying there is no evidence whatsoever. If you were, on the other hand, to say the evidence he provides is not very convincing, is insufficient, only represents a very, very small number of a very large set of hands played, and also requires the testimony from people whom no one is able to talk to anymore, I'm fairly confident most people, including me, would agree with all of it, perhaps to varying degrees.

But to say his claims are "without evidence," as unconvincing as it may be to you, is completely off the mark. When the prosecutor holds up Exhibit A in court, and you, as the defense, simply say "that isn't evidence," good luck winning a case, even if Exhibit A is something very trivial. [/QUOTE]
Could you please point me to this "evidence"? Unless of couse, you mean a couple of random hands he posts which are not evidence at all and have been discredited by other bloggers.
A vague reference to cigarette lighters is not evidence. [/QUOTE]
It's in the aluminum tubes that were moved to Syria before the invasion. [/quote]
Can the CIA verify this?

[nige1]

gnasher, on Oct 16 2009, 07:36 AM, said:

Nigel, you do know that this is the Internet, don't you?

Rhetorical Question?
Amusingly, recent posts answer JDonn's rhetorical questions in ways that clash with his assumptions

[the hog]

[quote name='Winstonm' date='Oct 17 2009, 07:02 AM'] [quote name='The_Hog' date='Oct 16 2009, 06:53 PM'] [quote name='jjbrr' date='Oct 16 2009, 09:05 PM'] snipped

Rik [/QUOTE]
Did you read all the posts in the blog? Wolff does provide evidence. I can't believe you keep saying there is no evidence whatsoever. If you were, on the other hand, to say the evidence he provides is not very convincing, is insufficient, only represents a very, very small number of a very large set of hands played, and also requires the testimony from people whom no one is able to talk to anymore, I'm fairly confident most people, including me, would agree with all of it, perhaps to varying degrees.

But to say his claims are "without evidence," as unconvincing as it may be to you, is completely off the mark. When the prosecutor holds up Exhibit A in court, and you, as the defense, simply say "that isn't evidence," good luck winning a case, even if Exhibit A is something very trivial. [/QUOTE]
Could you please point me to this "evidence"? Unless of couse, you mean a couple of random hands he posts which are not evidence at all and have been discredited by other bloggers.
A vague reference to cigarette lighters is not evidence. [/QUOTE]
It's in the aluminum tubes that were moved to Syria before the invasion. [/quote]
Probably Winston.

[Jlall]

fred, on Oct 16 2009, 06:48 PM, said:

hanp, on Oct 16 2009, 11:03 PM, said:

My impression is that among professional players many have chosen to use the same tricks.

I am surprised by your impression. FWIW my impression is that the game is very clean at its highest levels these days.

I have had a lot of experience playing against almost all of the world's most successful professional partnerships during the past 10+ years. In that time, the number of leading pro pairs who have left me with a clear impression of "cheating" could be counted on one finger - I don't recall how many hearts that shows in the R-S methods...

Almost all of the others top pro pairs (probably several dozen) have left me with a clear impression of "honest".

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Fred I have talked to han about this so hopefully he won't mind if I speak for him but the kind of stuff he's talking about is unethical/borderline stuff rather than very blatant cheating like R/S and the racecars.

Mainly tempo related things, like getting the singleton vs doubleton problems right all the time etc. You know the kind of things that it is possible to get away with all the time because it can be subtle enough and your opps don't know your exact tempo as well as your partner so not much can be done.

I am of the view that there are more top pairs that will do the small/subtle/shady things that they can get away with that are unethical than than those who won't, but if you don't agree I will defer to you since you have way more experience at the high levels than me (or anyone on this forum). I would definitely rather you be right, maybe I am cynical because of a few bad experiences.

I think there are almost no top pairs (maybe none?) that are giving illicit illegal signals with their coughs and stuff like that.

[Trinidad]

Jlall, on Oct 17 2009, 04:52 AM, said:

I think there are almost no top pairs (maybe none?) that are giving illicit illegal signals with their coughs and stuff like that.

Maybe we should check which pairs do worse during the flu season. After all, then their signals will be messed up by "random flu noise".

Rik

[PeterGill]

I think the Blue Team did not cheat.

I have read the book "Bridge with the Blue Team" by Pietro Forquet, in which the card play, mostly declarer play, of the Blue Team's players was absolutely outstanding, compared to the card play of the opposing players, as written in many books or articles. The Italian bidding systems were fine, the World Championship matches in those days were so long that a better team would inevitably defeat a slightly worse team year after year, one of my some-time bridge partners has studied every opening lead by some Blue Team members and concluded innocence, I am inclined (brainwashed?) to agree with my Australian friends such as the late Tim Seres and the late Dick Cummings who played masses of hands against the Blue Team and told of their experiences, and I find the contrary evidence unconvincing. OK, so this means I disagree with most top American players on this issue. So be it.

I don't include Facchini - Zucchelli in my above lionizing statement. You can send material to counter my comments above, but I will probably remain unmoved in my opinion, just as Judy will more robustly remain unmoved in her opinion. One day I hope to find the time to read every hand in every WC Book, and then I might change my opinion, but only if the evidence warrants it.

When I was commentating on BBO Vugraph, many spectators once sent me many private messages "because they're cheats" after I innocently and naively wrote something like "I wonder why he made that bid?" about one of the top pairs in the world, i.e. one of the pairs who made the quarter-finals in Sao Paulo. Personally, I think these specs, mainly from one country with a history of accusing people of cheating (not USA) are all wrong, and were behaving just like many people have on the internet in the last few weeks. I had to go to great lengths to figure out the perfectly logical reason why the player had made that bid.

My opinions of other cheating cases? In public, I'd prefer not to say. Kehela, who played against them a lot and was renowned for his table feel, did think that Reese
and Schapiro didn't cheat, but that doesn't make them innocent either.

My favourite reflection is that a guy who came 3rd in a World Bridge Championship told me that the top two ahead of him were cheating, so he really "won". Mmm. C'est la vie. To each, their own.

[fred]

Jlall, on Oct 17 2009, 02:52 AM, said:

fred, on Oct 16 2009, 06:48 PM, said:

hanp, on Oct 16 2009, 11:03 PM, said:

My impression is that among professional players many have chosen to use the same tricks.

I am surprised by your impression. FWIW my impression is that the game is very clean at its highest levels these days.

I have had a lot of experience playing against almost all of the world's most successful professional partnerships during the past 10+ years. In that time, the number of leading pro pairs who have left me with a clear impression of "cheating" could be counted on one finger - I don't recall how many hearts that shows in the R-S methods...

Almost all of the others top pro pairs (probably several dozen) have left me with a clear impression of "honest".

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Fred I have talked to han about this so hopefully he won't mind if I speak for him but the kind of stuff he's talking about is unethical/borderline stuff rather than very blatant cheating like R/S and the racecars.

Mainly tempo related things, like getting the singleton vs doubleton problems right all the time etc. You know the kind of things that it is possible to get away with all the time because it can be subtle enough and your opps don't know your exact tempo as well as your partner so not much can be done.

I am of the view that there are more top pairs that will do the small/subtle/shady things that they can get away with that are unethical than than those who won't, but if you don't agree I will defer to you since you have way more experience at the high levels than me (or anyone on this forum). I would definitely rather you be right, maybe I am cynical because of a few bad experiences.

I think there are almost no top pairs (maybe none?) that are giving illicit illegal signals with their coughs and stuff like that.

Thanks for clarifying on behalf of Han.

My post was referring to the illicit signalling as opposed to things like taking advantage of partner's variations in tempo. Sorry I was not more clear about this.

My thoughts on the sort of unethical behavior that you describe:

- It definitely happens.

- I believe that sometimes when it happens it is subconsious.

- I am personally willing to give just about everyone the benefit of the doubt at first (because I like to trust people, because sometimes people actually guess right, because sometimes I don't know as much about the hand from the opponents' point of view as I might think, and because I never know as much about an opponent's "normal tempo" as his partner does).

- My willingness to give people the benefit of the doubt quickly evaporates if I start to notice that they always guess right. Giving such people a dirty look when they are pretending to be thinking can work wonders

- There are definitely plenty of top pairs who will go out of their way to bury each other to ensure that they never gain in these situations.

- Most of the time when I am playing against top pairs, it happens behind screens (where some types of inferences from partner's behavior are harder to draw).

- When playing behind screens it is possible (and important) to even out the tempo of the bidding.

- There are also things you can do to try to even out the tempo during the play (like as declarer always waiting 10 seconds or so before playing to the first trick in order to make it impossible for your RHO to give his partner information with the tempo of a signalling card).

- It is entirely possible that you (and especially Han) see more of this than I do since it may be the case that some players will only engage in such behavior if they think they can get away with it. Some might not realize that you (being not quite as famous as me - for now at least!) and Han (being not as famous as you) are very sharp about such things.

- My previous post on this matter did not characterize *all* leading pro pairs that I have experience playing againt. I said that I thought that one such pair were cheaters and that almost all the rest seemed honest to me. I did not explictly mention what I thought of the few pairs who make up "the rest". This would be the handful of top pairs who appear to me to be willing to intentionally engage in the type of unethical behavior that you describe when I play against them.

So I think we more or less agree in principle if not in degree (and that some of the reasons for our differences in perception of degree may be explained above).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Trinidad]

Using Unautharized Information (UI) is not cheating.

Using UI can happen to many. That is because it is psychologically extremely difficult to "unknow" what you know or to separate the AI from the UI in your brain. Some people are genuinely capable of doing all that and others just can't do it. This is not out of ill will or out of an evil desire to win at all cost. It is caused by a lack of ability.

I would say that the use of UI is less at the top level than at lower levels. The reason for this is that top players are more aware of their ethical obligations than lesser players ànd because, at the top, the fraction of players who can deal with the psychologically difficult situation is higher.

But I have also seen top players go 100% wrong in UI cases. At the time of their action they are absolutely sure that they weren't doing anything wrong. Even immediately afterwards, they are absolutely convinced. But show them the deal a week later, so that they can look at the facts objectively and they want to eat their hat out of shame.

Cheaters cheat consciously and out of free will. UI users, use UI because they are not aware of it and because they are mentally incapable of voluntarily choosing an action that they know will be losing.

There is an enormous difference between these two categories of bridge players. One difference is that for real cheaters I wouldn't use the term "bridge player". UI users are bridge players. They just get adjusted scores.

Rik

[PassedOut]

Trinidad, on Oct 17 2009, 10:48 AM, said:

But I have also seen top players go 100% wrong in UI cases. At the time of their action they are absolutely sure that they weren't doing anything wrong. Even immediately afterwards, they are absolutely convinced. But show them the deal a week later, so that they can look at the facts objectively and they want to eat their hat out of shame.

And, perhaps, this capacity for shame is one of the characteristics that separates non-cheaters from cheaters.

[hanp]

fred, on Oct 17 2009, 10:06 AM, said:

Jlall, on Oct 17 2009, 02:52 AM, said:

fred, on Oct 16 2009, 06:48 PM, said:

hanp, on Oct 16 2009, 11:03 PM, said:

My impression is that among professional players many have chosen to use the same tricks.

I am surprised by your impression. FWIW my impression is that the game is very clean at its highest levels these days.

I have had a lot of experience playing against almost all of the world's most successful professional partnerships during the past 10+ years. In that time, the number of leading pro pairs who have left me with a clear impression of "cheating" could be counted on one finger - I don't recall how many hearts that shows in the R-S methods...

Almost all of the others top pro pairs (probably several dozen) have left me with a clear impression of "honest".

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Fred I have talked to han about this so hopefully he won't mind if I speak for him but the kind of stuff he's talking about is unethical/borderline stuff rather than very blatant cheating like R/S and the racecars.

Mainly tempo related things, like getting the singleton vs doubleton problems right all the time etc. You know the kind of things that it is possible to get away with all the time because it can be subtle enough and your opps don't know your exact tempo as well as your partner so not much can be done.

I am of the view that there are more top pairs that will do the small/subtle/shady things that they can get away with that are unethical than than those who won't, but if you don't agree I will defer to you since you have way more experience at the high levels than me (or anyone on this forum). I would definitely rather you be right, maybe I am cynical because of a few bad experiences.

I think there are almost no top pairs (maybe none?) that are giving illicit illegal signals with their coughs and stuff like that.

Thanks for clarifying on behalf of Han.

My post was referring to the illicit signalling as opposed to things like taking advantage of partner's variations in tempo. Sorry I was not more clear about this.

My thoughts on the sort of unethical behavior that you describe:

- It definitely happens.

- I believe that sometimes when it happens it is subconsious.

- I am personally willing to give just about everyone the benefit of the doubt at first (because I like to trust people, because sometimes people actually guess right, because sometimes I don't know as much about the hand from the opponents' point of view as I might think, and because I never know as much about an opponent's "normal tempo" as his partner does).

- My willingness to give people the benefit of the doubt quickly evaporates if I start to notice that they always guess right. Giving such people a dirty look when they are pretending to be thinking can work wonders

- There are definitely plenty of top pairs who will go out of their way to bury each other to ensure that they never gain in these situations.

- Most of the time when I am playing against top pairs, it happens behind screens (where some types of inferences from partner's behavior are harder to draw).

- When playing behind screens it is possible (and important) to even out the tempo of the bidding.

- There are also things you can do to try to even out the tempo during the play (like as declarer always waiting 10 seconds or so before playing to the first trick in order to make it impossible for your RHO to give his partner information with the tempo of a signalling card).

- It is entirely possible that you (and especially Han) see more of this than I do since it may be the case that some players will only engage in such behavior if they think they can get away with it. Some might not realize that you (being not quite as famous as me - for now at least!) and Han (being not as famous as you) are very sharp about such things.

- My previous post on this matter did not characterize *all* leading pro pairs that I have experience playing againt. I said that I thought that one such pair were cheaters and that almost all the rest seemed honest to me. I did not explictly mention what I thought of the few pairs who make up "the rest". This would be the handful of top pairs who appear to me to be willing to intentionally engage in the type of unethical behavior that you describe when I play against them.

So I think we more or less agree in principle if not in degree (and that some of the reasons for our differences in perception of degree may be explained above).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

There is a wide spectrum of unethical behavior. Taking advantage of partners hesitations on occasion is about the mildest violation I can think of, in fact one has to try really hard not to do this.

It is a bit more unethical to delay when you switch to a doubleton so that partner can read it. It is even more unethical to complain to partner afterwards when partner has smoothly switched to a doubleton, "you played it smoothly, how am I supposed to know you that don't have a singleton!".

Yet more world class players behave in this way than Fred can count on his one finger.

There is of course much more. Some of the world's best players are also known for being some of the worlds best slotters: drawing conclusions about the opponents hands based on where they draw there cards. It is well known that Hamman doesn't sort his hand for this reason. There must be top players who go a step further and take a peek in your hand whenever given the chance (of this I am only guessing based on stories I have heard btw, I do not know).

I would not call top level bridge clean, but I agree that this is very different from what Reese and Shapiro were accused of.

[hanp]

Trinidad, on Oct 17 2009, 10:48 AM, said:

Using Unautharized Information (UI) is not cheating.

I wasn't talking about using unauthorised information. One of the things I was talking about is partnership efforts (that are blatantly discussed beforehand) to get certain situations right through unauthorised information. I think this is cheating and I think the pairs that do it think it is cheating as well.

[hanp]

[quote name='Cascade' date='Oct 16 2009, 07:18 PM'] [quote name='Winstonm' date='Oct 17 2009, 01:02 PM'] [quote name='The_Hog' date='Oct 16 2009, 06:53 PM'] [quote name='jjbrr' date='Oct 16 2009, 09:05 PM'] snipped

Rik [/QUOTE]
Did you read all the posts in the blog? Wolff does provide evidence. I can't believe you keep saying there is no evidence whatsoever. If you were, on the other hand, to say the evidence he provides is not very convincing, is insufficient, only represents a very, very small number of a very large set of hands played, and also requires the testimony from people whom no one is able to talk to anymore, I'm fairly confident most people, including me, would agree with all of it, perhaps to varying degrees.

But to say his claims are "without evidence," as unconvincing as it may be to you, is completely off the mark. When the prosecutor holds up Exhibit A in court, and you, as the defense, simply say "that isn't evidence," good luck winning a case, even if Exhibit A is something very trivial. [/QUOTE]
Could you please point me to this "evidence"? Unless of couse, you mean a couple of random hands he posts which are not evidence at all and have been discredited by other bloggers.
A vague reference to cigarette lighters is not evidence. [/QUOTE]
It's in the aluminum tubes that were moved to Syria before the invasion. [/QUOTE]
Can the CIA verify this? [/quote]
I just called CIA. They said no comment. I think that means it is true.

[nige1]

Trinidad, on Oct 17 2009, 10:48 AM, said:

Using Unauthorized Information (UI) is not cheating.

I disagree with Rik. IMO, just as in the case of other laws, so with laws against using unauthorized information, you are a cheat if

• You know the law.
  
• You break the law.
  
• You know you are breaking it.
  
• You do so deliberately.

Bridge law is too complex, subjective, and sophisticated. Hence ordinary players are ignorant of areas of law, especially the law about UI. This is easy to confirm by reading opinions expressed in the laws section of BBO fora. Also we are prone to carelessness and rationalisation. Furthermore, the laws are inadequately deterrent: some laws even appear to encourage infractions. Thus, although many break the law, we would be shocked to be called cheats. Nevertheless, top players should improve their knowledge of the law and become more self-aware, so as to show a better example to us.

[Winstonm]

Quote

I disagree with Rik. IMO, just as in the case of other laws, so with laws against using unauthorized information, you are a cheat if

    * You know the law.
    * You break the law.
    * You know you are breaking it.
    * You do so deliberately.

The saying goes that ignorance of the law is not defense, either. If you know the law and break it you are a cheat, and if you are ignorant of the law you are still a cheat.

Well, that pretty much narrows it down to the stupidity defense, then.

[gnasher]

Winstonm, on Oct 17 2009, 10:05 PM, said:

The saying goes that ignorance of the law is not defense, either.  If you know the law and break it you are a cheat, and if you are ignorant of the law you are still a cheat.

No.

If you know the law and break it intentionally you are a cheat. If you break the law through ignorance, carelessness, or poor judgment, you are still liable to penalty (or "rectification", under the new Laws), but you aren't a cheat.

[HeavyDluxe]

I've watched this thread with great interest... When I started to get 'into' bridge, the first book I read (aside from teaching books) was _Bridge with the Blue Team_. I can still remember the way the cover looked as I stared at it on the interlibrary loan shelf.

The next book I read was Hamman's _At the Table_ which, as you all know, contains an extended recounting of his experience with the "Italian Foot Soldiers". I was kinda fascinated by the scandal and proceeded to read as many books as I could on the whole thing, including trickling into books on the R/S scandal.

It strikes me that most Americans are inclined to believe the testimony of Hamman, Wolff, Swanson, and many others that certain pairs on the Blue Team cheated. People outside the US are inclined to call it sour grapes. Since the thread has gone this way, I think the objective evidence against Reese/Schapiro is startling and denying that there was something improper going on there is naive (at best).

We all bring presuppositions and loyalties to this discussion that makes the 'plain truth' a lot more cloudy that it probably need be. So, it's likely that the truth will never be known re: the Blue Team unless Benito makes some deathbed confession. I certainly don't think the true greats of the team (Garozzo, Belladonna, Forquet) needed to cheat to be successful, but I am less confident that a blind eye wasn't turned to the conduct of other pairs... Regardless, I agree with previous posters that the absence of a roaring, vehement denial is absolutely puzzling to me.

Whether or not it is true, it's a shame that the rumors casts such a pall over a reign in international bridge that was truly mammoth.

[Trinidad]

nige1, on Oct 17 2009, 10:33 PM, said:

Trinidad, on Oct 17 2009, 10:48 AM, said:

Using Unauthorized Information (UI) is not cheating.

I disagree with Rik. IMO, just as in the case of other laws, so with laws against using unauthorized information, you are a cheat if

• You know the law.
  
  
• You break the law.
  
  
• You know you are breaking it.
  
  
• You do so deliberately.

Bridge law is too complex, subjective, and sophisticated. Hence many players are ignorant of areas of law, especially the law about UI. This is easy to confirm by reading opinions expressed in the laws section of BBO fora. Also we are prone to carelessness and rationalisation. Furthermore, the laws are inadequately deterrent: some laws even appear to encourage infractions. Thus, although many break the law, they would be justifiably irate to be called cheats. Nevertheless, top players should improve their knowledge of the law and be more self-aware, so as to show a better example to the rest of us.

Let me clarify my position a little bit.

Obviously if the use of UI satisfies the four conditions that you give, it is cheating. But more than 99.9 % of the UI cases don't satisfy your conditions. Most specifically, at the time that the "perpetrator" is breaking the law, he isn't aware that he is breaking it.

I am 100% with Gnasher on this. Almost all UI cases originate from poor judgement and something like "tunnel vision".

Rik

[Jlall]

The type of thing Han was talking about (and I also) was intentionally taking advantage of UI.

At the world class level the players are very in tune with what's going on, even if they are lying to themselves and saying the do it subconciously they know they're doing it imo. And many of the ones who do take advantage of UI at that level are probably thinking more about "can I get away with this or not?" again imo.

I agree there are those who bend over backwards when they have UI to not use it, this is how I was taught and I think my personal hero Bob Hamman is the best at this and I'm happy I got to learn a sense of his ethics, but in my experience this is far and away the exception not the rule.

I totally agree with what Fred said, against other world class players these people will be more ethical. This is because they can get away with less, and someone like Fred telling all of his friends that player X is unethical is worse than someone like me saying it. This also doesn't mean they won't do anything against other world class players, there are still things you can get away with.

Likewise I'm sure these people who get away with whatever they can vs me are being even more unethical with people worse/less well known than me. I mean at a regional against a non pro team you could pretty much just take advantage of everything and get away with it. I suspect there are those who do just that.

Unfortunately in bridge a lot of the rules remind me of the honor system in school. That just doesn't work, especially when there is big business and a lot of money on the line. Especially when you are playing against people who you suspect of doing unethical things, or even know they are, but have NO way of getting them for it. I think most people do not have the mental fortitude to keep being ethical in the face of that.

[nige1]

Winstonm, on Oct 17 2009, 04:05 PM, said:

The saying goes that ignorance of the law is not defense, either.  If you know the law and break it you are a cheat, and if you are ignorant of the law you are still a cheat. Well, that pretty much narrows it down to the stupidity defense, then.

Apparently, I did not make myself clear. Sorry WinstonM.
I said that one of the conditions for being a cheat is that you know the law that you are breaking. By that I meant that you are not ignorant of it

[Hanoi5]

I remember I was playing with this student once and I led an Ace (from AK) against a trump contract. We usually show attitude in this situation, even in this case when dummy shows a doubleton (and has trumps); you can overruff dummy if you have some high or semi-high trumps and a doubleton in the suit yourself, you guys know the situation.

So I lead the Ace and receive an encouraging card from partner so I continue with the King...AND NOW THE STUDENT STOPS TO THINK!!! I was so ?/&% off that I did what I think is correct, I continued the suit and gave away a trick. After the hand was finished I said, 'Sorry I thought you had a doubleton'. Worse still, another student who was watching the whole thing said: 'how can he have a doubleton if he thought for such a long time!'...

Teaching ethics is not easy. Using UI is probably 'natural'.