[rduran1216]

In light of recent threads about cheating, this is a club game issue.

There is a player I suspect that listens to the hands around the room and makes way too many successful questionable calls versus times when they dont work, which is never. This is a solid player in addition to these things he does. On days where he's put far away from louder pairs or not by someone who talks about hands, I've got data made about considerable worse results.

This hand I played against him really got me mad and start to note this stuff.

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standard 15-17 range.

Is there any way to enforce this?

[TylerE]

Well, the *legal* way is to probably start enforcing the rules that are already in the book about discussing hands.

[ggwhiz]

There is no legal way that I know of but in a similar situation I once said "sorry, I should have bid the slam" while rubbing heads with the guy at the table behind me.

Passed the boards for the next round and he bid the slam, down four.

Everyone at my table had looked at me as if I had 2 heads (we were in a partscore) but I gave them a sshhh and we ended up with an entire posse recruited from the membership that eventually drove this guy insane.

Gotta be REALLY careful to use words like "may" and "possibly" or you are as bad or worse than the culprit and that's the tricky part.

ps. At 1 club, the same guy used to reserve table 6 N/S where the boards were passed to him from #7 which was parallel. If he couldn't scoop the hands while playing, he at least got the last 1 when he stood to walk (roundabout) his boards to table #5.

[Bbradley62]

Is this the sort of thing that recorders are for?

[Mbodell]

Yes, I imagine this is what recorders are for.

I will note that absent other information I think the most likely reason for this auction on these cards is miscounting the points or missing a card.

[Phil]

Last weekend at my club we played in a barometer game and everyone in the room had to be extra quiet. It was such a nice environment to play in.

Regarding the OP: you will occasionally hear rumors about certain Southern California professionals that have large ears. However, one thing to bear in mind is that they frequently are seated EW, so in a typical Mitchell movement they need to hear what is going on two tables away, and this is not easy to do. Nevertheless for a successful player to gain an edge by cheating, they only need one or two positive swings over the course of a session to convert that 59 into a 64, so its not like they need to be listening to everything that is going on at all times.

I would continue to record these hands and the hand in question is very suspicious.

[kenberg]

In a club setting I definitely like the ggwhiz approach. With a little planning I think this could go very well. Eg "Sorry about leading a heart, I see that a spade sets it", "Maybe I should have played for the drop", "Underleading my ace would have set them", etc etc. It would be interesting to hear his explanation to his partner as to why he followed some unsuccessful line of play that was clearly against the odds. If this caught on it could be quite a sport. And of course you could save the hands and, as you get a collection, give them to the appropriate authority.

[JLOGIC]

This one is unfortunate since he has a normal 2N opener, he can say he meant to open 2N, or that he miscounted (in fact opening 1N with a 2N opener is one of the most common messups probably). Of course, if you think he's cheating then you can file a recorder form on him...if he messes up this way frequently and is always right, that will be damning evidence.

[JLOGIC]

ggwhiz, on 2011-August-10, 21:40, said:

There is no legal way that I know of but in a similar situation I once said "sorry, I should have bid the slam" while rubbing heads with the guy at the table behind me.

This is the running joke at the cavendish, the tables are very close and it's barometer for a lot of $$ so no doubt people overhear and use it...so once I heard a player who was very successful in the event jokingly say after picking up some monster where game doesn't make "the way to win imps on this board is to say 'Making 6?' when you claim at the end of the hand."

[rduran1216]

JLOGIC, on 2011-August-11, 18:55, said:

This one is unfortunate since he has a normal 2N opener, he can say he meant to open 2N, or that he miscounted (in fact opening 1N with a 2N opener is one of the most common messups probably). Of course, if you think he's cheating then you can file a recorder form on him...if he messes up this way frequently and is always right, that will be damning evidence.

no, he was justifying his bid and bragging about it with his partner after the hand. Again this isn't the 10th time he's done something sketchy, just the most blatant, cause tables in that room are so cramped, and most people talk way too loudly.

[mfrench1]

Phil, on 2011-August-11, 09:03, said:

Last weekend at my club we played in a barometer game and everyone in the room had to be extra quiet. It was such a nice environment to play in.

Regarding the OP: you will occasionally hear rumors about certain Southern California professionals that have large ears. However, one thing to bear in mind is that they frequently are seated EW, so in a typical Mitchell movement they need to hear what is going on two tables away, and this is not easy to do. Nevertheless for a successful player to gain an edge by cheating, they only need one or two positive swings over the course of a session to convert that 59 into a 64, so its not like they need to be listening to everything that is going on at all times.

I would continue to record these hands and the hand in question is very suspicious.

The pros sitting E-W have other ways to gain information. For the first part of the game they can listen to any N-S comments about the round just played when they come to the table, for those are boards they will meet later. They can also glance at the N-S score card, for it is often lying face up for anyone to see. The careless N-S pairs may be aware that any information gained and utilized by E-W will harm other N-S pairs and thus benefit them.

[JLOGIC]

Yeah EW is a huge advantage if you're going to do stuff like that, you can also walk the room.

[dicklont]

In June we have organised a tournament in a former prison.
It was a barometer event, and in every cell was one table.
One of the be advantages that the contestors reported - we had not realised this in advance - was the fact that they could talk about the hands as much as they liked.

Should the guy in the OP maybe play all his hands in a prison?