November 2020 - 8

Letters to the Editor

a trial membership at Shark Bridge. I
also tried BBO Prime. I tried teaching
my most frequent partner at Jourdan's
to play online, and that was a failure:
It's like a car she barely knows how to
drive.
DANIEL EISENBERG
Boca Raton FL

In-person

online bridge

I know that online bridge is all we
have at the moment and all we are
likely to have for quite a while into
the future. I enjoy playing online and
encourage others to also do so.
However, pretending that online
bridge is the same as playing in person
does not wash. The ACBL has been
acting and talking as if online bridge
and in-person bridge are almost the
same thing. They are not, and the
ACBL needs to be more realistic about
that fact. Online, there are no bids or
leads out of turn, no insufficient bids,
no revokes, and "table presence" is
non-existent. Not meeting friends once
or twice a year at regionals and nationals is a minus, although that is partly
replaced by being able to play regularly
with partners and teammates who are
all over the world. Although bridge is
fun, the best times my wife and I have
had at bridge have been dinner with
our teammates after the game. That is
gone. I see no way of changing those
facts. I am not saying that those differences mean we should not enthusiastically encourage online bridge; I am
only saying that online and in-person
bridge are two different games and
should be acknowledged as such by the
ACBL.
And then there is cheating. The
ACBL has spoken at length about
cheating online and appears to be
making strenuous efforts to reduce it.

8 Bridge Bulletin November 2020

However, even assuming that cheating online is easier than at in-person
events, the only form of cheating that
the ACBL appears to be addressing is
improper communication between
partners. [Ed: Cheating may be easier
online, but detecting it is easier still
because the bid and play records make
it simple to do so. BBO and the ACBL
examine clusters of unusual results to
detect cheating, whatever its form.]
With respect to improper communication, a particularly clever pair can
avoid detection by limiting the amount
of cheating that they do. When the British broke the German code, Enigma,
during World War II, they had to devise
a plan to limit their use of the information they were able to gather. If they
used too much, the Germans would
soon realize that the code had been
broken and would change the code. But
they wanted to use as much information as possible without the Germans
becoming suspicious. A bridge partnership could use the same strategy.
I suggest that points won online and
points won at in-person play (clubs
and tournaments) be completely separated. I would suggest that as of Jan. 1,
2021, points earned online no longer be
counted for present ranking purposes,
and all players be reset to zero online
points. Instead, points earned online
could be used for a new online ranking
system so we could have online masters, online Life Masters, online Grand
Life Masters and so forth. Perhaps
some players would be less likely to
play online if they were not able to use
those points to improve their in-person
point rankings, but many others would
be encouraged to play online to earn
these new rankings.
ROBERT SHENKIN
West Chester PA

A remembrance

Al Loebel was a lifelong bridge player
and our club director (sometimes
called "dictator") at an unsanctioned
club in Healdsburg CA. Al and I also
played weekly at the sanctioned game
at the Bridge Gallery in Santa Rosa. He
was very accomplished, and players
there all thought he was a Life Master,
even though he had not played enough
to attain that status.
Then his lung cancer returned, and
the pandemic occurred. So we started
to play on BBO to support the Bridge
Gallery. Almost every day, he would
get up and ask me to play with him,
and I did. His wife, Liz, said it was the
highlight of his day. He still played well,
but I could tell in our conversations
afterward that he was getting weaker.
He was placed in hospice care, and
some days he did not have the energy to
play. But on April 21 this year he called
and said he wanted to play. So we did,
finishing first with a 63% game and
earning 1.65 MPs. He was very pleased
and happy.
He died quietly 36 hours later. He
loved the game and very much enjoyed
that he could play online; he certainly
did not have the stamina or strength
to play in person. I was so happy that
I made his last few hours comfortable
and fun.
DAVID ANDERSON
Geyserville CA

November 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of November 2020