BBO Discussion Forums: Cheating Allegations - BBO Discussion Forums

phil_20686, on 2015-September-01, 09:00, said:

Greatly exaggerated.
While top players play better, otherwise they would not be top players, they make plenty of mistakes and take suboptimal lines all the time.
They all know of course the common right lines of play, which are discussed in the books.
Ask any unbiased top player or read Kit Woolseys weakly series on BW.
They usually start with something like "In a Round of 16 match in the Open Trials etc. "

Whenever I read "No top player would ...." I get skeptical
Of course they are not stupid but they are no super-humans either.
I also got the impression that very good play is not the most important ingredient for a top player, even though undoubtedly useful.
You get a wrong picture, because these are reported in the newspapers.
Opportunities for brilliancy are rare.
Good understandings and agreements where it matters, judgement and constant performance, even if you are only above average but not top, is what matters much more.

Rainer Herrmann

mike777, on 2015-September-01, 20:57, said:

Where did he make it and what exactly did he say?

lamford, on 2015-September-01, 18:05, said:

Meckstroth actually laughed to the ♦J finesse when Carl Hudecek and another poster tried to explain with ♣A lead. In fact Carl made almost a copy of what Rainer wrote here about the matter.

Meck wrote "LOL. It is obviously true that you can fool some of the people all of the time."


http://bridgewinners...=219952#c219952

Trinidad, on 2015-September-01, 13:42, said:

This.

In principle it is enough just to demonstrate any correlation between the way the defender not on lead handled the tray, and the suit that was chosen for the opening lead. Leaving out alternatives that are "insane" would probably boost the statistical power of the test but it would also complicate the analysis since we would have to define "insane", and besides there is a possibility that they sometimes do make insane leads when partner asked for it.

Looking for a correlation between how the defender not on lead handled the tray and which lead he wanted would also be useful. But again, it would mean we would have to define how we identify the suit he wants.

It is important to leave out all boards that have contributed to the suspecion of tray-handling signals. If we first develop a hypothesis of tray-handling signals based on some boards we observed, and subsequently analyse the same set of boards statistically, we would be picking cheries.

FWIW, a close friend of mine who is a bridge player just became aware of the incident and asked me what I thought was going on.
Here's the response I sent him

___________________________

I personally believe that the pair is cheating. I question whether it would be possible to provide this conclusively in a court of law, however, if I had to guess "Cheat" versus "Not cheating" I'd go with cheating. Moreover, its unclear to me where we should be drawing the line between false positive and false negative.

Here's the evidence that I find most compelling.

1. Their track record is just too good. They have had too many wins in major events in too short a time at too young an age competing against very deep fields.

2. Within individual events, people have been able to make a plausible link between a signalling mechanism and hand type. (The correlation between the placement of the bidding box and opening lead seems particularly telling).

3. Fisher and Schwartz been convicted of cheating in the past as youth members of the Israeli Bridge Federation)

4. Their opening leads seem way to successful

5. The sheer number of complaints and recorder forms that have been registered against them. (Its interesting to note that after the pair's convincing Cavendish win, they have not been invited back supposedly due to the number of opposing pairs who claim that Fisher and Schwartz are cheating)

I'm not sure whether any of this would ever stand up in court. It is, however, enough to tilt me into the cheating camp.

I would have been much more happy if the WBF had been able to do a more thorough test like the one that happened when the German Sernior Team was stripped of their medals last year. In this case, someone came forward and claimed that the "Doctors" were cheating and specified the mechanism by which information was being exchanged. (coughing) The WBF then video recorded the Doctors in another event, saw that these hands were consistent with the hypothesis, and based their case on this evidence.

Doing retroactive data mining looking for correlation is a great way to develop a hypothesis, but its no substitute for being able to test this on a fresh data set.

__________

Since I wrote this, more videos from past events have been turning up and the board placement signal is appearing in a number of them. This is pushing me even further into the "Cheating" camp.

helene_t, on 2015-September-02, 02:31, said:

But you need a lot more boards for the former method to get significant results, as often opening leader will have an obvious lead.

For the latter method, just decide ahead of time (e.g. by polling a few experts) what suit one would signal for. Just toss out boards where you don't get a clear prediction.

Maybe offtopic, but I found this quote from Lotan Fischer about his Cavendish experience hilarious:

Quote

http://newinbridge.c...80%99s-favorite

cherdano, on 2015-August-31, 16:06, said:

When B-L were around I had this conversations:

Former partner: -We might have to get signals to catch up
Me: -No way

its just 11 word conversation but it is still stick into my head, and will be forever. When there are cheaters and they are not caught, and they beat you you can't stop thinking this way.

hrothgar, on 2015-September-02, 04:22, said:

Schwartz wasn't, AFAIK.

hrothgar, on 2015-September-02, 04:22, said:

Whatever people claim, it seems to me cheating at the top level is getting much harder because

1) deals and plays are archived and available to the public for scrutiny.
2) it also seems to get much more common that big tournaments get videotaped and these are also available to the public.

Cheating will never get completely eradicated but the recent incidents in a short interval of time will probably act as a deterrent to quite a few.

1) allows for proper statistical analysis. Proper statistical analysis requires expertise few have and is often misinterpreted. But when done properly it is good evidence.
2) allows for code detection and when the correlation is very strong where no correlation should be (e.g coughs with opening leads) it is also good evidence.

For example modern statistical analysis can detect whether bills authorized for payments in a large company are fake or not.
I do not see why similar methods could not be employed with deal records.
For example
http://www.bridgebas...r-in-the-world/

and look who comes out on top.

You can do similar things with opening leads etc.

Where I am less convinced is 5).
Rumors start quickly and can have very dubious motives. I also dislike if someone is barred from a tournament based on such rumors and complaints.
It is somewhat ironic to me that FS may now be convicted of cheating "beyond reasonable doubt" but the trigger was a won appeal, which had nothing to do with the cheating allegation in itself.
The motives of Boye Brogeland look to me like revenge.

Rainer Herrmann

When we were kids 8 years to max say 13 years.
6 or 8 players on same table, 3-3 or 4-4 in each party, sitting alternate.
We used play game where trump is to be selected by one party and it is kept hidden till somebody wants to ruff and asks.
Now what trump to keep or what suit to play during play could be signalled ( cheating ), officially allowed, but if it is caught by other party and proves correct, all must catch ear and 10 sit ups and that game is lost. And there was penalty for accusing party also, if they challenge and decode it wrong, they catch ears and sit ups.
Signals were simple Touch Eye means S, Show Tongue means H, Touch Ear means D and Touch Hair means C.
Now the advancement started, first signal is to be ignored, 2nd one correct, and so on, sometimes 1st and 2nd are to be ignored 3rd is correct.
Then there were 4 / 5 different sets of 4 Signals, all given code names, e.g. Set 1 = Robin Hood, set 2 = Trazan, set 3 is Gengis Khan and set 4 = John and set 5 = Jack, somebody will say Trazan 3 means this deal Set 2 signalls to be used and ignore 1st and 2nd signal and 3rd one the correct.
And One Word Will Be for No Signalling. Say that word is Jesus Christ, when somebody says this word means , this round No Signalling, but we will signal, all wrong and Opps Challange we will take sure penaly.
No need to say, normally game used end up in quarrels and fight and losing party vowing to take revenge next day.
This was at Kids Level. At Higher Levels, if at all Cheaters want to cheat, they will make things more difficult for others to be able to decode. Use CCTV Cameras or Employ Observers. The Code will be broken in real sense only when the Cheaters themselves would like to disclose it and tell world, See, You Could Not Break It.

rhm, on 2015-September-02, 02:03, said:

I did not mean to suggest that top players are perfectly optimal all of the time, far from it, or this would be a very boring game, but, nevertheless, the range of mistakes that experts make is much smaller, and there is usually a demonstrable bridge reason for their line. And some lines are much harder to see than others. Thats because there are usually lots of lines that are within a few % of each other and do not strictly dominate each other, and there are often card reading implications. But there are probably dozens of other lines which are much worse than that. Experts reliably find pretty good lines. If you are regularly choosing lines which are a lot worse than reasonably obvious better lines, and they work, then that becomes very suspicious very fast.

On the hand I discussed (5h defence), switching to a spade isn't reasonable, its clearly contra-indicated by partners play. Its giving up an enormous edge if you don't signal here by ignoring what partner is telling you and Its essentially 0% to play a spade if you believe that partner would signal for a spade when he can cash the contract off in spades. And it just happens to be right....

Sure one hand doesnt prove anything etc, etc, but it isnt just one is it.....

*Maybe it will turn out that that BB doesn't understand their carding, or that the 8 of clubs was not the card that Schwarz actually played, and i will look stupid, but somehow I doubt it.....

MrAce, on 2015-September-02, 02:18, said:

so the other two declarers who made the slam are cheaters as well? Or is it only conclusive evidence when we already 'know' they cheat?

I think FS cheat, but let's hope their fate get decided by people who do not go into the matter so convinced of their guilt that they see evidence in everything that they have ever done.

Ishmael Delmonte, with a number of expert contributions has now published his interpretation of their code on Bridgewinners.

While his sample size may be too small for some tastes one of the comments points out that the real test is to apply that code to the many hours of video that are available and see if it meshes. The code appears to be so detailed and comprehensive that he probably missed a thing or two but thanks to the 100+ hours he spent on this sample size confirmation should be relatively easy.

The fact that nothing like this was done after multiple complaints over the years surely shows that the powers that be just don't have the capacity (or will) to do their job without help. Larry Cohens idea that an expert panel can do this legwork for them is looking better all the time.

The process can then go back where it belongs but this public circus was needed. A side benefit is that if proper confidentiality is restored in a beefed up process we all have a very transparent view of how it will work.

MrAce, on 2015-September-02, 02:18, said:

Timo, no reason to overstate your case. Carl Hudecek's post was completely ridiculous, and Rainer's post was very reasonable in comparison. I don't think Meckstroth would have LOL'ed Rainer's posts.

I don't think world class players would run the ♦T without additional help from table feel (and if they did, they would think before cashing ♦A). But its not a ridiculous play to make.

mikeh, on 2015-September-02, 07:53, said:

The two other declarers who made 6D on the lead of the AC have been tracked down. They have commented:

Patrick Shields, Wales v Bosnia: "It was board one of the match and he did lead the CA, although I had bid diamonds and then clubs, and I think I had shown a heart stop. I can't remember how fast he led it but it made me awfully suspicious as I felt he had no difficulty leading a heart, and the auction was screaming for that."

Rob Walker, Switzerland v Romania: "Hi all I am a member of the Swiss bridge team. My teammate (Rob Walker) has claimed that ♣ A lead at his table was made with a speed of light."

So, we have two strong, but not world-class, players picking up the jack of diamonds because in one case the auction screamed for a heart lead, so he concluded that the player might have had a trump trick. In the other, declarer concluded much the same because of the speed of the lead. We do not have the auctions in the rooms where it made, but here for sure the partner of the leader did not double FSF which he might do with ♥KJTxx for example.

We are not arguing that the diamond play has no bridge logic whatsoever. Indeed, if the lead had been a club to the ace and a second club won by declarer, I doubt whether Schwartz would have taken the same line, as he would not have been able to justify it. There are indeed two possibilities:

a) He had no UI, despite the videos, and decided that the AC lead changed the odds so much as to take a second-round, not a first-round finesse. This, as Aardv points out, is the silver bullet. It was irrational of him to guard against a singleton jack but fail to pick up Jxxxx. The AC lead did not suggest ♦xxxx at all.

b) He had UI and thought that he could use the AC lead to justify running the ten of diamonds on the second round. Even though there might be at least two or three other reasons why someone, who took a long time to lead, might cash the AC.

I know which of the above I think is more likely, but defamation laws prevent me from offering an opinion.

At the moment speculation is all that: speculation. Until some hard evidence is presented about the alleged cheating allegations, then should we - any of us - be discussing it by illustrating hands? Cheating in any type of sport always leaves a very bad taste in the mouth. Let's see whether Boye Brogeland is going to pursue it further, having now received a legal letter from the Lotan Fisher/Ron Schwartz legal team.

The_Badger, on 2015-September-02, 16:35, said:

http://bridgewinners...e-videos-speak/
(Others have done the same work with other matches, with the same results.)

Quote

http://bridgecheaters.com/?page_id=325

lamford, on 2015-September-02, 14:32, said:

This argument seems flawed to me.

Let's look at the possible thought processes of an innocent declarer. I don't claim that Schwartz was innocent or not nor that he would have thought this way if he were.

LHO, a good player, led the Ace of my second suit, with no clear reason to do so on the auction. Partner, for instance, had not announced a solid source of tricks.

Hmmm.....there is an old notion, old in bridge terms, that a defender who leads an Ace in these situations thinks he has a trump trick. But this is not a firm rule....it is not at all clear...it merely shifts the percentages a bit.

I'll cash the Ace, because I would look foolish guarding against a very improbable 5-0 break... that lead isn't THAT strong an indication.

Ok, I see only a high spot on my right. Probably meaningless, but if it means anything at all, it suggests either J7 or stiff. Hmmm, if it was J7, LHO's lead of the club Ace is a bit odd. If it was stiff 7, LHO's lead makes nothing but sense. Ok, I am going to run the 10.

Please tell me where the bridge logic of this argument fails.

Repeat: I am not claiming Schwartz was innocent. I am saying that the only reason you infer guilt from this line of play is that you are looking for actions that confirm your prejudged view.

I am not at all strong on my own table feel: I probably have about as little ability to pick up on the intangibles as any player of my level, which is a notch or two (or more) below the level we are critiquing. However, even I know that table feel is often the piecing together of several pieces of information. Any argument that looks only at the club Ace lead, or any argument that looks only at 5-0 or 4-1 breaks misses the point. Schwartz, if playing honestly, had the lead, and the 7 appearing on the 1st round. Nothing conclusive, but the players with good feel take little bits and consciously or unconsciously synthesize them into a feeling about the lie of the cards.

What you see in Schwartz as clear proof of cheating would, I venture to say, be seen by you as proof of ability were any of a dozen or so other top players, 'known' to be ethical, to have done it.

Look....there is increasingly powerful evidence that these guys cheated. Why are you still harping upon hands on which the evidence only points to cheating because you think they are cheating?

Btw, as for the videos released by Ish on BW, they are a step in the right direction and I applaud his efforts....I sure can't spend that amount of time on this topic. However, he is still doing it all the wrong way. He analyzes behaviour from the assumption that they are cheating and then interprets the evidence to confirm his assumption. This is wrong, and the error has been pointed out, early in the threads on BW, by some very well-informed statisticians, not some lawyer who last took stats 40 years ago (me).

Crack the code. Then have others naïve to the hands report on behaviour during a match not yet analyzed. Have those people, who don't see the hands at all, say: on board 12, if the code is correctly understood, it looks like F wants a club lead.

Then have someone else look at the actual hand and see if a club was led.

That requires more than one person, so it isn't at all surprising that Ish didn't do it. Woolsey says he is doing a more thorough analysis and I hope that works out.

Thanks Arend (Cherdano) Have been getting up to speed with this story during the day. OMG! Digital age. Whole website created discussing it at length! {In the 1980s I corresponded with Alan Truscott of the The New York Times about the Buenos Aires cheating allegations in 1965 involving Reese/Flint.} What a sad day for bridge.