A cheating scandal in the world of professional bridge • Hacker News Board

Re: A cheating scandal in the world of professional bridge

#11

Post by rbonvall » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 10:22 PM UTC

ganeumann wrote: post #9

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #2

do New Yorker authors get paid by the word or something? Tl;dr They cheated by adjusting a tray to different positions to convey different meanings.

I like the longer articles in the New Yorker. The charm of articles like that is becoming familiar with a milieu, not the notional theme of the article. Learning about a small but dedicated subculture by reading an interesting story is more interesting than just knowing the facts about a professional contract bridge cheating scandal. This tl;dr thing makes sense in articles about technical subjects when all you reall…

I agree. What the actual cheating technique was is the least interesting part of the story.

Re: A cheating scandal in the world of professional bridge

#12

Post by olympus » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 10:43 PM UTC

This reminds me of a family card game we played when I was younger called Rook. It was very similar to bridge in that you played with a partner, bid for a contract/trump, and table talk was not allowed. We did allow non-verbal forms of communication and that became a large part of a winning strategy. We mixed up partners and the escalation became so great that we had a different form of communication for each of the different partners. Then a scheme would be figured out and we would have to rotate our codes to something else. It was like a family game of thermonuclear war by the time us kids moved out. Just like I think they should have a legal doping class in cycling where it is okay to take performance enhancing drugs, we should just make an open class of bridge where non-verbal communication is allowed and the schemes are not shared with the opposing pair. I'll bet we would observe some interesting behavior emerge between partners.

And I have to hand it to the New Yorker for this one. Longform journalism is hit or miss for me, but I really enjoyed reading about this game that I've never played before. I guess the author did a good enough job explaining the game that I figured out that it was similar to Spades, Hearts, Euchre, and Rook in some ways that I stuck with it until the end.

Re: A cheating scandal in the world of professional bridge

#13

Post by na85 » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 10:57 PM UTC

sharkjacobs wrote: post #10

I enjoy bridge, but high level competitive bridge sounds like a nightmare. "Expert poker players often take advantage of a skill they call table feel: an ability to read the facial expressions and other unconscious “tells” exhibited by their opponents. Bridge players rely on table feel, too, but in bridge not all tells can be exploited legally by all players. If one of my opponents hesitates during the bidding or the…

You can't. It's a game that is fundamentally flawed at the base level, just like blackjack.

The fact that both these games outlaw certain thought processes, be that counting cards in your head or acting on your partner's hesitation, shows that they've been shoehorned into something they're not.

Re: A cheating scandal in the world of professional bridge

#14

Post by ath0 » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 11:03 PM UTC

sharkjacobs wrote: post #10

I enjoy bridge, but high level competitive bridge sounds like a nightmare. "Expert poker players often take advantage of a skill they call table feel: an ability to read the facial expressions and other unconscious “tells” exhibited by their opponents. Bridge players rely on table feel, too, but in bridge not all tells can be exploited legally by all players. If one of my opponents hesitates during the bidding or the…

The golf example (from later in the article) is telling: if those most looked-up-to in the profession publicly and exhaustively exhibit a dedication to fair play, and it's part of the culture down to the lowest levels, then it can work much of the time. You also have to be brutal in enforcement: golf pros who sign an incorrect card, even if they just misunderstood a local rule, are disqualified (though this is changing, see http://espn.go.com/golf/story/_/id/13975820/rules-golf-elimi...).

It's true that once people start getting away with cheating, even minor cheating, and others see it, it quickly becomes universal. Like cycling (also from later in the article).

Re: A cheating scandal in the world of professional bridge

#15

Post by mcguire » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 11:08 PM UTC

ergothus wrote: post #8

I'm a huge bridge fan - it's a very logical game, and the rules are simple but the implications many. It also has two parts: the bidding, in which you signal to your partner what you have as well as determine both trump and which partnership will play (The game incentives bidding as high as you can, but not bidding higher than you can achieve; and the play, which is an exercise in odds and using the information glean…

I was dragged to a bridge class by my girlfriend several years ago, and it was fascinating. The thing that struck me most was that you could lose the game during the play, but you could only win the game during the bidding.

Unfortunately, because I'm an antisocial rat bastard, I never kept up with playing or tried to join the club.

Re: A cheating scandal in the world of professional bridge

#16

Post by mcguire » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 11:11 PM UTC

Cpoll wrote: post #3

An interesting subject is what can be done to stop cheating? It seems that separators are insufficient. Each player must be in a completely enclosed room, preferably a Faraday cage, lead box? Furthermore, all moves must be submitted digitally, with a time limit, and the actual move will only be displayed at the end of that limit. Even then, we'll probably hear about a bug in the software used.

I think you're describing high-level tournament chess.

Re: A cheating scandal in the world of professional bridge

#17

Post by ergothus » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 11:17 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #15

ergothus wrote: post #8

I'm a huge bridge fan - it's a very logical game, and the rules are simple but the implications many. It also has two parts: the bidding, in which you signal to your partner what you have as well as determine both trump and which partnership will play (The game incentives bidding as high as you can, but not bidding higher than you can achieve; and the play, which is an exercise in odds and using the information glean…

I was dragged to a bridge class by my girlfriend several years ago, and it was fascinating. The thing that struck me most was that you could lose the game during the play, but you could only win the game during the bidding. Unfortunately, because I'm an antisocial rat bastard, I never kept up with playing or tried to join the club.

One of the unfortunate side effects of learning bridge is the tendency to sneer at games like Spades as being "bridge-lite"

Re: A cheating scandal in the world of professional bridge

#18

Post by dec0dedab0de » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 11:35 PM UTC

na85 wrote: post #13

sharkjacobs wrote: post #10

I enjoy bridge, but high level competitive bridge sounds like a nightmare. "Expert poker players often take advantage of a skill they call table feel: an ability to read the facial expressions and other unconscious “tells” exhibited by their opponents. Bridge players rely on table feel, too, but in bridge not all tells can be exploited legally by all players. If one of my opponents hesitates during the bidding or the…

You can't. It's a game that is fundamentally flawed at the base level, just like blackjack. The fact that both these games outlaw certain thought processes , be that counting cards in your head or acting on your partner's hesitation, shows that they've been shoehorned into something they're not.

counting cards is legal in Atlantic City, but if they suspect you of it they'll shuffle every hand or not let you change the size of your bet.

Re: A cheating scandal in the world of professional bridge

#19

Post by eru » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 11:36 PM UTC

na85 wrote: post #13

sharkjacobs wrote: post #10

I enjoy bridge, but high level competitive bridge sounds like a nightmare. "Expert poker players often take advantage of a skill they call table feel: an ability to read the facial expressions and other unconscious “tells” exhibited by their opponents. Bridge players rely on table feel, too, but in bridge not all tells can be exploited legally by all players. If one of my opponents hesitates during the bidding or the…

You can't. It's a game that is fundamentally flawed at the base level, just like blackjack. The fact that both these games outlaw certain thought processes , be that counting cards in your head or acting on your partner's hesitation, shows that they've been shoehorned into something they're not.

It just shows that bridge can not really be played cut-throat competitively with humans face-to-face. (Social play is fine and fun.)

Adding intermediation (either other humans or computers) removes most of the problems.

Re: A cheating scandal in the world of professional bridge

#20

Post by eru » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 11:38 PM UTC

olympus wrote: post #12

This reminds me of a family card game we played when I was younger called Rook. It was very similar to bridge in that you played with a partner, bid for a contract/trump, and table talk was not allowed. We did allow non-verbal forms of communication and that became a large part of a winning strategy. We mixed up partners and the escalation became so great that we had a different form of communication for each of the…

> I'll bet we would observe some interesting behavior emerge between partners.

Just have a different scheme for each hand, and describe your whole hand with hand signs. (Since you don't have more information than your whole hand, this is as bad as it'll get.)