July 2020 - 6

IN FIRST SEAT
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Dirty rotten cheaters

The pandemic has altered the course of bridge
history and changed the way that tens of thousands of bridge enthusiasts enjoy their favorite
pastime. Cut off from traditional face-to-face
bridge, players have now taken to their computers, tablets and smartphones to get their fix online.
The fact that the ACBL and BBO were able to offer a wide variety of
contests - from club-level games to tournaments - in a very short space
of time as the pandemic unfolded was greatly appreciated by players.
The letters and emails have been positively glowing; ACBL members
were deeply impressed by the quick response.
Those same emails, however, typically express a note of concern
about the threat of collusive cheating. For the ethically impaired, it's
easy to do online. Although players universally recognize that online
play is the only option to enjoy bridge for the short term, they still want
to know what the ACBL and BBO are doing about cheating.
A few years before his death in 2014, I met Allan Cokin at an NABC.
For those unfamiliar with the name, Cokin had been convicted of collusive cheating with partner Steve Sion in 1977, and the expert pair
was suspended for five years, forbidden from playing with each other
ever again. Although Sion was later expelled for yet another cheating
violation, Cokin worked actively to make amends for his sin, coaching Junior teams pro bono for many years. He became a citizen in good
standing and rehabilitated his reputation, though it took decades to
do so. He approached me because he wanted to write a book about his
career, a memoir with the cheating incident as the fulcrum for the story.
Although he never got around to beginning the book in earnest, he had
already selected a title for the piece: "It's Not Worth It."
The ACBL and BBO have a message for players who cheat online: It's
not worth it. The bid and play records make it extraordinarily easy to
corroborate cheating allegations, and BBO investigators work with the
ACBL National Recorder to catch and prosecute offenders. If we catch
you, you will be disciplined. BBO is a private company and will summarily ban you from their site. The ACBL will then have its turn, and its
punishments include lengthy suspensions, barring partners from playing together, loss of most or all of your masterpoints, and, for extreme
cases, expulsion.
For more on this, see "A Message from the President on pg. 9, "Ruling
the Game" on pg. 26 and "For the Record" on pg. 27.
Paul Linxwiler, editor@acbl.org

6 Bridge Bulletin July 2020

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Bulletin
BRIDGE

Editor: Paul Linxwiler

Managing Editor: Sue Munday
Associate Editor: Chip Dombrowski
Graphic Design /Layout: Cindy Hill
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July 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2020