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Anonymous Play

#1 User is offline   Espo1 

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Posted 2021-January-01, 19:06

I am curious why players are permitted to play anonymously in competition on BBO. I asked this question of BBO recently. The answer I received was that some people "even have more than one username and log in with an anonymous profile to avoid being detected by his friends.''

This is difficult to understand in an online/pandemic era when cheating is - to be extremely polite about it - a problem. Simple logic suggests that one way of keeping folks honest is by requiring them to register under their name.

One more point: no one is permitted to play anonymously at a club or live tournament. Shouldn't every player be able to know who the competition is during online play, as well?

Thanks for any thoughts.
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#2 User is offline   pilowsky 

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Posted 2021-January-01, 20:37

Agree, anonymity breeds contempt.
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#3 User is offline   nige1 

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Posted 2021-January-02, 08:17

I don't think BBO can check that players use their real names unless, for example, they are members of NBOs. BBO might be able to flag players with a verified NBO membership number. Although that wouldn't prevent determined identity fraud.
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#4 User is offline   blackshoe 

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Posted 2021-January-02, 10:53

I don't recall anyone at any of the f2f clubs I've played at asking me to show id.
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#5 User is offline   mycroft 

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Posted 2021-January-02, 13:33

I play under my "legal" name - at least, the same one the ACBL has. But it doesn't matter - my ACBL # is tied to my profile, so at least in "real" games, anybody can find out who I am. But yet, I make a point of not mentioning my name as anything but Mycroft here, or in other spaces (Note: please respect that).

Why would someone want to be anonymous to the "madding crowds"?
  • Well, I had one person who had to have a different name even in my club, because the results were posted online - she had a stalker, and he actively would come after her, and also any organizations she was known to associate with.
  • I'm much more comfortable being known as Mycroft than (at least some versions of) my real name; it's enough of a pain IRL, never mind anywhere else.
  • I have a name unique in the still living and online world, and work in an industry where hiring organizations online check you routinely, and it's a negative check if you don't code for pleasure as well as for work. Last I checked, bridge isn't Turing complete.
  • How would you know, if my name was Jim Smith instead of [what it is], if that was my "real name"?
  • What if my real name was, say, Osama Al-Hussein and not closer to Jim Smith?
  • I've listened to women, and non-straight people, talk about the routine abuse they get just by having a female-presenting (or non-straight) persona. Why should they have to "out" themselves to more of it to enjoy "competition"?
  • What about my trans friends, who are in their "live the life" part of transition (or their "too expensive yet to change *all* the documentation" part)? You want to force them to deadname themselves just to do a little "competition"?
  • This goes double for people who may be of interest to their, or others', government...

Yes, there is cheating. Yes, I have three BBO accounts myself, all in different names. They're used for three totally different purposes, and anyone who wants to check if I might use them for other purposes than the stated ones are welcome to - frankly, if you determine that I'm cheating, with the results I get, imagine how bad a bridge player I would be playing straight up! Yeah, the reason that Justin Lall (may he rest in fun) had at least 4 accounts was so that he could play with people, or teach clients, or watch his friends, or ... without being bombarded with millions of requests for kibitzing, or team games "with a pro!" or ... I bet Bill and Warren, if they play online, do that too. I know some fairly famous people IRL (well, okay, for very limited scopes of "famous"); if I managed to introduce them into something fun and challenging to play, where they didn't have to be "on" all the time, I bet they would prefer to be somewhat anonymous, too.

I can understand if, for *serious* competition (and I'm not talking club games, or even ACBL Regional At Home; money (either pro salary or cash prizes), national status, and the like), sure, ensure that the player's account is tied to their RL persona somehow. But that doesn't necessarily mean Real Name - Daniel Abt competed under his real name, that didn't change what happened, for instance.

Read up on "real name policy harm" and "my name is me" and see why their wish for a real life in their preferred name might be more important than your concern that 1% of the people that beat you at the table didn't quite do it because they're better or luckier than you.
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#6 User is offline   pilowsky 

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Posted 2021-January-02, 14:28

I suppose I'm lucky. My real name is Pilowski. My grandfather escaped Poland before the war. When he went to the South African office of BDM to register my father, they misspelled it as Pilowsky on the certificate.
People ask me "how do I spell that" or "Did I say it right?"
When my sister moved back to London she deliberately changed the pronunciation so that the POM's could cope.
But I care, my name is a memory of the ones that did not make it. I'm proud to wear the yellow star - even if some Boer insisted on mangling it.
Yad Vashem. My name remembers them.

Trans, Jew, conservative or WASP: names are important,

Don't play with me if you want to be a secret squirrel - I'm happy playing with real people, no matter the result.
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#7 User is offline   pescetom 

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Posted 2021-January-02, 14:32

View Postblackshoe, on 2021-January-02, 10:53, said:

I don't recall anyone at any of the f2f clubs I've played at asking me to show id.


At any f2f club in Italy you would be asked to provide name and surname and a national or international membership code: probably nobody would check at the time, but a lie would emerge before the classification was published. I'm surprised that the US is different.
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#8 User is offline   pilowsky 

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Posted 2021-January-02, 14:38

View Postpescetom, on 2021-January-02, 14:32, said:

At any f2f club in Italy you would be asked to provide name and surname and a national or international membership code: probably nobody would check at the time, but a lie would emerge before the classification was published. I'm surprised that the US is different.


When you pay to play, you are attempting to purchase masterpoints so that you can impress yourself.
If you don't provide a code and your real name, you will be unimpressed - whatever the result.

When you teach, spectate or play in a casual game you don't care.

Mind you, try walking into a shop with a motorcycle helmet on or wearing an obvious disguise - see what happens. You won't like it.
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#9 User is online   johnu 

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Posted 2021-January-02, 15:20

View Postblackshoe, on 2021-January-02, 10:53, said:

I don't recall anyone at any of the f2f clubs I've played at asking me to show id.


I think most ACBL clubs use Bridgemates, so you have to enter your ACBL number to get points registered, and your number is tied to your name. And even if they don't ask for ID or your ACBL #, clubs will ask you your name if they don't already have it. And speaking of names, wouldn't you have your full name on your convention card !?! If you aren't interested in ACBL points, I suppose you could give a fake name when you pay your entry fees.
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#10 User is offline   blackshoe 

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Posted 2021-January-03, 15:09

"Any time a society becomes so complex as to require ID cards, it is time to leave." -- R.A. Heinlein.

Problem: where to go? :-)
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#11 User is offline   pescetom 

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Posted 2021-January-03, 16:36

View Postblackshoe, on 2021-January-03, 15:09, said:

"Any time a society becomes so complex as to require ID cards, it is time to leave." -- R.A. Heinlein.


I have some sympathy with that, but then we shouldn't have invented money, guns, the internet and all that complicated stuff.
In the meantime we live in a reality where you cannot barge into a bridge club and stay anonymous or get away with obvious lies.
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#12 User is offline   mycroft 

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Posted 2021-January-04, 11:31

Why not? I could have. Of course it was the Catholic Club in Bangalore, where they didn't know me from Adam. I didn't, but I could have. I think I had to get my contact to vouch for me when I asked to play in the "World Bank/IMF Duplicate Bridge Club" - maybe I just came in with his business card, can't remember.

There's certainly an expectation that if you show up at a club awarding NBO masterpoints, that you are, or want to be, a member of that NBO. But if I happened to be in London (or Leeds, more likely) for work, or Sunderland for family, or Milan for a vacation, I'm sure nobody would ask me for ID, they'd just trust me. And they probably wouldn't ask me to join the NBO or even their club for one game (all of this is "private clubs excepted, of course").
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#13 User is offline   morecharac 

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Posted 2021-January-04, 15:07

View PostEspo1, on 2021-January-01, 19:06, said:

I am curious why players are permitted to play anonymously in competition on BBO. I asked this question of BBO recently. The answer I received was that some people "even have more than one username and log in with an anonymous profile to avoid being detected by his friends.''

This is difficult to understand in an online/pandemic era when cheating is - to be extremely polite about it - a problem. Simple logic suggests that one way of keeping folks honest is by requiring them to register under their name.

One more point: no one is permitted to play anonymously at a club or live tournament. Shouldn't every player be able to know who the competition is during online play, as well?

Thanks for any thoughts.

I've read of being known as female online can lead to some unpleasant interactions, either abusive or just unwanted.

Whether this applies in bridge, where experience shows that most abuse of female players is saved for wives and other romantic partners...
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#14 User is offline   pescetom 

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Posted 2021-January-04, 16:27

View Postmycroft, on 2021-January-04, 11:31, said:

There's certainly an expectation that if you show up at a club awarding NBO masterpoints, that you are, or want to be, a member of that NBO. But if I happened to be in London (or Leeds, more likely) for work, or Sunderland for family, or Milan for a vacation, I'm sure nobody would ask me for ID, they'd just trust me. And they probably wouldn't ask me to join the NBO or even their club for one game (all of this is "private clubs excepted, of course").


In Milan, if you politely admitted to not being a member of any NBO they might well allow you to play all the same and assign you the ID of an absent club member (then things could get tricky if you won a cash prize). Otherwise you would have to provide proof of NBO membership, at least in the form of a card (or brashly supply an Italian NBO code which would be checked and named by the scoring system, with the result notified to the player by app).
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#15 User is offline   scarletv 

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Posted 2021-January-04, 16:50

View Postmorecharac, on 2021-January-04, 15:07, said:

Whether this applies in bridge

Be assured it applies in many ways and is not exclusive for wives and other romantic partners
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#16 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2021-January-04, 17:54

Where to begin

1. It's expensive to try to verify people's identity on the internet. Any type of scheme that you put in place will inherently discriminate against people who aren't fortunate enough to live in developed economies with credits and driver's licenses and the like

2. Lots of women face really terrible discrimination in many forums of online gaming. Allowing women to hide their identities is actually a really important feature
Alderaan delenda est
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#17 User is offline   mycroft 

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Posted 2021-January-05, 13:07

Hrothgar's #1 reminds me:

My then-GF was not allowed in to a bar (in a university town - they didn't "not care") because they couldn't verify her age.

Because Québec drivers licenses encode the DOB into the licence number. And therefore there isn't a DOB field on the card.

Now, in this case this was ludicrous, as it was like a LA bar not being able to read an NV driver's license - next state over, don't see *too many* of them, but enough that you should have documentation at least.

But multiply that by 65 different documents in Canada and the US alone, another 33 if you want to include the entire ACBL territory, then, given the large number of non-resident (District 99) ACBL members, well, you're in the thousands at least. So they'll probably do what governments issuing visas do and require notarized documents (for whatever "notarized" means in the player's country - a Notary's job is very different in Canada vs the U.S. vs Mexico, just to mention countries I've had to work with) translated into English or French if necessary, and with the relevant information highlighted if, for instance, it's not "obvious" like PQ DOB isn't obvious.

****book can (claim they) do it, because it's clearly in the company's best interest to sell their advertisers real names. So what if they actively harm women, muslims and queer people, they're not customers, just content.
Other bridge site can do it, because their express goal is to chum up to the pros and pro-wannabes, and given the choice of protecting the average bridge player or being able to send a nastygram to their NBO if they abuse said pros, the answer is obvious.

That's their choice, same as it's my choice not to participate and to slag them off for their decisions whenever it's appropriate. And to fight to keep (sufficient, as stated above, anyone who has even a shallow need to know who I am can find out) pseudonymity on BBO.
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#18 User is offline   morecharac 

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Posted 2021-January-06, 20:28

View Postscarletv, on 2021-January-04, 16:50, said:

Be assured it applies in many ways and is not exclusive for wives and other romantic partners

'Twas an unsuccessful attempt at dark humour.

I've had run-ins at FTF with a couple of players who treat their spouse bridge partners horribly but think of themselves as the good guys.
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#19 User is offline   pilowsky 

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Posted 2021-January-07, 01:32

View Postmorecharac, on 2021-January-06, 20:28, said:

'Twas an unsuccessful attempt at dark humour.

I've had run-ins at FTF with a couple of players who treat their spouse bridge partners horribly but think of themselves as the good guys.


Just another good reason to be an online player.
I don't understand why anyone would have a particular concern about one group of people being treated badly FTF.
Bridge at the Club seems to be an equal opportunity place for that.
Everyone gets discriminated against. Women, men, Jews, everyone. The Director at my last FTF club said he thought all South African Jewish Women were arrogant.
As my South African Jewish mother would say "he's a real ethnic crowd-pleaser".
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#20 User is offline   morecharac 

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Posted 2021-January-07, 17:04

View Postpilowsky, on 2021-January-07, 01:32, said:

I don't understand why anyone would have a particular concern about one group of people being treated badly FTF.

When they're swearing at and insulting their partner/wife so loudly the entire club can hear it and management claims a zero-tolerance policy but won't act without somebody calling them...

Yes, I'm glad I've made the switch to online bridge. That and moving in with my earned-the-title-of-wife* after ten years in a long-distance relationship are two good things to come out of COVID.

* Just because we didn't live together doesn't mean she didn't become my wife. Paperwork and custom be damned.
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