[Bbradley62]

This was in a free robot dupe, so there's completely nothing at stake and mostly it's amusing, but what could/should happen if this occurs in an ACBL event or something else?

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Not all that surprisingly, human quit the game after this hand even though he got 100% of the matchpoints on this one.

This post has been edited by inquiry: 2012-September-06, 20:05
Reason for edit: South's name removed as this is clearly an accusation of cheating. I will discuss the point of this post in a reply to it.

[inquiry]

Bbradley62, on 2012-September-06, 16:05, said:

This was in a free robot dupe, so there's completely nothing at stake and mostly it's amusing, but what could/should happen if this occurs in an ACBL event or something else?

First thing that would happen if this occurred in any bbo rating point event is that probably several players would report it to abuse at bridgebase dot com. Even if that didn't happen, there are some software tools used to investigate such actions that would flag players like this, and even hands not so obvious as this one. The BBO ethics department would then open an investigation of the the bidding/play of the player involved. Abuse would then get the report and decide how to continue. Does this work? I can tell you it does, cheaters are being caught and punished for cheating in rating point events.

Would any BBO staff look at this event (a free one, no rating points at stake)? Basically no. However, when someone appears to cheat in meaningless events, their name and their aliases can be and often are added to a watch list for rating point events. (Theory if someone would cheat in main room or free event, they surely would cheat in pay event). The player originally reported here (name removed by me) and his aliases have won a grand total of 9.27 BBO rating points, all back in 2008.
alias 1 - 4.88 bbo rating points,
alias 2 - 0.77 bbo rating points,
aiias 3 - 0.18 bbo rating points,
alias 4 - 1.62 bbo rating points,
alias 5 - 1.82 bbo rating points.

All five of these aliases won these rating points in one month during 2008, All the events they won them in were robot races. Robot races are cheat free, here is how the bbo web page explains why.

Quote

The Robot Race format makes cheating impossible. Here is why

• There is no way for you to communicate with your partner -- it's a robot!
• East and West are robots, so, they have no desire to cheat. Why would they?
• Each human is dealt a totally different set of hands, so, there is no possibility of collusion
• Kibbitzing is disallowed for Robot Races

[Bbradley62]

I don't think this particular South cheats; I just think he screws around. But seeing this hand made me wonder about sanctioned games.

[ArtK78]

If this is a robot game, the human player should be allowed to do whatever he wants to do, unless there is some way that he could know in advance that this particular action would work as spectacularly as it did. Assuming no prior information about the board, who is he cheating? The robots?

[barmar]

This isn't cheating, it's a psychic bid, and in general they're allowed by the Laws of Duplicate Bridge.

Now, this particular psychic bid happens to be prohibited by ACBL convention regulations (you're not allowed to psyche an artificial, strong, forcing opening). However, those regulations apply to partnership understandings. It's not clear whether they should be enforced in a robot game, where the only "understandings" are the robot's system.

Quote

who is he cheating? The robots?

The other players in the tournament. But there's nothing stopping them from pulling stunts like this -- the robots aren't going to call the director on them.

Is this really much different from taking advantage of knowing that the tourney is "best hand"? Don't we all adjust our bidding based on this? These conditions are known to all the players in the tourney, so everyone can use and abuse them equally.

[Bbradley62]

ArtK78, on 2012-September-06, 22:06, said:

Assuming no prior information about the board, who is he cheating? The robots?

If this were an ACBL-sanctioned game awarding ACBL masterpoints, which was the premise of my question, he would be cheating all of his opponents who played in accordance with ACBL rules and did not psyche a strong artificial opening.

[barmar]

Just to be clear, just because a game awards ACBL masterpoints doesn't mean it has to follow the GCC. Although we call them "tourneys", these are club games, not ACBL-run tournaments. As such, the club regulations apply, and clubs have wide lattitude regarding system regulation.

In our human-only tournaments we say that the GCC applies, but I don't think there's anything similar in the robot tourneys.

From the ACBL Club Director's Handbook:

Quote

1. Any conventions may be allowed or disallowed at the discretion of the club’s management.
2. Players must have the approval of the club director before using any convention not specifically
authorized. (It is suggested that each club post a list of approved conventions in a conspicuous
place on its premises.)
3. The conventions allowed in a game may vary in accordance with the masterpoint level of the
contestants. The basis for the determinations at each club (or each session of a club) should be
what is most desirable for the players at that game.
4. What conventions a club allows or does not allow has no effect on the club’s rating.
5. Clubs inclined to permit patrons to test new or little-known conventions or systems are advised to
restrict such testing to one of several scheduled sessions. If experience indicates the majority of
the club players welcome this policy, it can easily be extended to other sessions.

I thought there was also a requirement to publicize differences from the GCC, but I can't find it in this document -- is it somewhere else? If there is, then I admit we're amiss in this regard.

[Bbradley62]

Ok. The "it's a club game, so we can do whatever we want" logic is applicable and didn't occur to me.

[barmar]

barmar, on 2012-September-07, 09:10, said:

I thought there was also a requirement to publicize differences from the GCC, but I can't find it in this document -- is it somewhere else? If there is, then I admit we're amiss in this regard.

Silly me, it's in #2: "(It is suggested that each club post a list of approved conventions in a conspicuous place on its premises.)"

So it's suggested, but not required. If we post them in Fred's house (that's the official address of BBO), does that count as "on its premises"?