August 2024 - 28

The Watcher
What every online player needs to know about EDGAR
By Amy Casanova
T
he pandemic-imposed exodus
from F2F bridge play to online
play - and the subsequent
explosion in cheating - resulted in
shocking confessions and charges,
and a profound need to clean up
online bridge. Two expert bridge
players, Franco Baseggio and Brian
Platnick, developed a computerbased
cheating detection (CBCD)
program dubbed EDGAR (Everyone
Deserves a Game Above Reproach),
for which they received the 2022
Nadine Wood Volunteer of the Year
Award. After many months of testing,
review and validation, EDGAR is finally
in use. What does that mean?
Since February of this year, the
ACBL has been implementing CBCD
in its online sanctioned games. All
ACBL members who play online are
screened via their individual player
number. The first players screened
were ACBL officials (employees,
members of the Board and Advisory
Council), high-level national committee
members, honorees and people
previously found guilty of ethical
violations. The general membership
is now being screened, with the order
randomly selected. Data from 2020
on is included.
28 | Bridge Bulletin | August 2024
" The fact is, there's no statute of
limitations on cheating, " said Larry
Sealy, Region 7 Director and chair of
the Appeals and Charges Committee.
" Some people cheated early; some
people cheated late. Those individuals
ran off players from online games.
I know a number who said, 'I don't
play anymore because I was being
cheated all the time.' As we locate
those who did damage to the game,
they're going to get disciplined. "
After screening is completed, all
online players will be periodically
(and randomly) re-screened along
with those players who have previously
been disciplined.
What EDGAR does and does not do
Specifics about how the software
works have been discussed in detail
on the social media platform Bridge
Winners. In a nutshell, EDGAR has
several different detectors which
analyze opening leads, card play and
bidding to estimate the likelihood
a player's actions were influenced
by unauthorized information (UI).
Detectors classify a given action as a
" hit " or " miss " (some detectors also
include " neutral " ). EDGAR mostly
looks for the run-of-the-mill decisions
which an honest pair is going to get
wrong some of the time. Players with
a low enough miss-rate for a detector
score points; if they score enough
points over all detectors, EDGAR will
flag the player as " red. "
Opponents might raise an eyebrow
when a lesser-experienced player
chooses an " odd " yet successful action,
but to avoid falsely accusing an
innocent player, EDGAR has many
safeguards. First, players will not
score a single point for a detector unless
their miss-rate is much lower
than what an expert could plausibly
achieve. Second, even if a player has
a miss-rate which is low enough to
score points, they won't come close
to red unless they have played a large
number of boards - enough that the
probability the player had a sustained
lucky streak is virtually impossible.
Finally, all red reports are analyzed to
make sure the results are consistent
with cheating and not some innocent
explanation.
Because the Board is concerned
about falsely accusing innocent players,
the threshold for an EDGAR score
to reach the red zone is high. Players
should not worry that their non-expert
bridge play will set off alarms.
August 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of August 2024
