September 2020 - 18

Eyes on the Street
Your role in keeping the game honest

ridge is a fun challenge - whether
played with friends and club
mates in a social setting or competitively in a tournament, where everyone is doing their honest best to win
(honest being the key word). A positive,
trusting environment allows everyone
to play their best game.
Unfortunately, trust seems to be
in short supply, now that bridge has
been quarantined online. Without the
ability to physically see and hear each
other, doubt creeps in. The rules of the
game haven't changed just because the
environment has changed; cheating is
still cheating, and players still know
right from wrong.
Urban planner Jane Jacobs coined
the term "eyes on the street" to describe "the unconscious self-policing
that citizens provide in lively, welltrafficked public spaces." The lively,
well-trafficked playing tables are our
public spaces, and you and all your
fellow players are ACBL's eyes on the
street.
Your role doesn't come with a badge
and a gun - you are not empowered to
investigate, make accusations or throw
anyone in jail. In fact, publicly accusing another player of cheating is, itself,
a conduct violation of the ACBL's Code
of Disciplinary Regulations, punishable by 180 days probation and/or up
to 180 days suspension. If, on a wild,
unauthorized, accusatory bender, you
stain another player's reputation or
in any way violate their enjoyment of
the game, you'll be doing penance long

18 Bridge Bulletin September 2020

after your 180-day suspension is up.
Investigating questionable activity
and prosecuting cases where the evidence of cheating is convincing are the
jobs of the ACBL National Recorder's
office. If you haven't met the League's
National Recorder, Robb Gordon,
through his online video or the many
educational articles he has written for
this magazine, make it a point to know
his name. He's the ACBL's sheriff.
BBO also has its software flags, abusereporting mechanism and teams of
investigators.
Robb and his assistants are aided
by experts who volunteer hundreds
of hours analyzing hundreds of deals.
They look for system departures both
egregious and subtle, the frequency of
lucky leads or shifts on defense, and inexplicable style variations - a reliably
aggressive bidder goes silent with a
seven-card suit at favorable vulnerability; a player who unfailingly upgrades
4-3-3-3 14-point hands to open 1NT
suddenly downgrades a 15-count with
a five-card suit; the out-of-the-blue,
for-no-good-reason lead of a low card
away from an honor sequence, finding partner with the missing honor.
And every time, the unique layout of
the cards favors the odd action. Coincidence? Is there another explanation
- maybe a misclick? Inattention? A
partnership misunderstanding? One
deal does not tell the story - nor 10,
nor, maybe, dozens.
Statistical analysis may provide
some clues, but to make a case stick,
the investigators study patterns of
behavior as well as outcomes and frequency. In order to do that, they need
to build a database of example deals.
That's where you - the eyes on the
street - come in.
When the auction takes an odd
turn, or declarer's or defenders' hands
become known and your spidey senses

BY SUE MUNDAY

tingle, get into the habit of filing a
Player Memo.
BBO makes it easy to save a deal to
your files or report suspect action. See
the illustration at the end of this article.
Experts analyze their peers' calls and
play at a level so complex that it would
take pages to explain what the expected play should be and how that call or
line of play was egregiously violated.
Instead, let's look at a couple of
very elementary examples, where the
explanation for what happened could
be completely innocent. Or, it could be
a puzzle piece that helps demonstrate
a pattern that points to suspect behavior. Let's say that over the course of an
18-board virtual club game, one pair
submits these results.

❶ ♠J 8 7 6
You
?

❷ ♠A Q 6 3
You
1♦
?

❸ ♠K J 7 2
You
1♦
?

❹ ♠8
West
1♠

♥K J 4 3 2 ♦A ♣Q 5 2
Partner
1NT
♥A 10 4 3 ♦K Q J 2 ♣A
Partner
1♥
♥K 10 ♦A Q 7 6 ♣A J 4
Partner
1♥

♥9 8 7 ♦Q 10 5 3 ♣A J 10 9 8
Partner East
2♥
4♠

You
?

❺ Let's finish this set off with a lead
problem. You're on lead against 2♥:
♠K 9 4 2 ♥7 5 ♦6 ♣K Q 10 8 5 4.
West
1♣
2♥

Partner East
1♦
1♥
All Pass

You
Pass

What happened at the table?
❶ 2♣, Stayman, would be the tra-

September 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2020