When we started learning to play bridge in the late 1960s and early 1970s, reading, practice, general hard work and playing in the local clubs were the only ways to improve - and it was a SLOW process.
With the advent of online clubs one can appear to improve a lot more quickly. After learning the rudiments of the game, the transition from beginner to expert can be seamless and rapid. The heights to which a reasonably good player can rise ... well, we shall see - this blog will show just how easy that transition can be with very little effort.
A few years ago a player using the alias of Aruf began playing on Bridge Base Online (BBO). Before long he had become a regular winner of events sanctioned by the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) on that site.
Once he had made a name for himself he started playing other tournaments and team games, often partnering international standard players, winning (or close to winning) virtually at will.
Investigations eventually showed that beyond doubt Aruf was a certain Mehmet Faruk Kepekçi (MFK), a junior player from Turkey - by now a member of the Turkish junior international squad.
When MFK was announced as a member of the Turkish team for the forthcoming European Junior Championships, the Turkish Bridge Federation (TBF) was advised of how MFK's meteoric rise to stardom on BBO came about. When it appeared TBF was not interested, the European Bridge League (EBL) - the governing body behind the event - was informed as well.
Unfortunately, neither organisation seems prepared to take action.
Please take a ride with us and decide whether a player like MFK should be participating in a major championship with the blessing of both his national federation and the governing body.
You may want to bookmark this page and drop in regularly, as we're planning to publish new boards all the time - we have hundreds of them ...
On behalf of the Aruf Admiration Society (AAS),
David Green, Chairman
Occo Eric Nolf, President & CEO
5 comments:
All the online examples I've seen are from ACBL sanctioned tournaments. Has anyone contacted ACBL?
Because I don't think it is proper procedure for either the TBF or the EBL to take action based on alleged violations (however severe) in ACBL tournaments without a prior ACBL decision on the matter.
hi i am Mehmet Faruk Kepekçi.I started to play bridge 5 years ago.i am 25 years old.i started play good when olimpiads in İstanbul.i worked with USA seniors team.i was a recorder.(jim robison,John onstot...)They won.and i watched all of match.i started play in bbo.and i meet a lot of people.i watched a lot of star players.i joined ACBL tourneys with lasming,hesch....we took good results.and all days i went to up.but i never use cheat.all people can write a lot of things about me.you must watch me in really games and think.Who is aruf?
Thanks....
When we started this blog we decided to allow comments from anybody without the need to register.
We appreciate feedback, but we suspected we wouldn't get much of that unless posters could choose to remain anonymous. After all, by now it's no longer a secret that online bridge clubs, and even national bridge organisations, are prepared to use ugly methods against anyone threatening their lucrative joint ventures.
We have no way of knowing if the previous comment was indeed posted by Mehmet Faruk Kepekçi. Not that it matters much - there's nothing worthwhile in the comment as far as the material we published is concerned.
If Mehmet Faruk Kepekçi wants to post a comment on this blog, he's welcome to contact us so we can validate his identity.
Unfortunately, the previous poster mentions the BBO nicks of 2 more or less regular partners of Aruf in ABCL tournaments.
We would like to make absolutely clear that we're convinced Aruf was conducting a solo operation. The enormous amount of material we examined didn't contain any reasons for us to have suspicions against any of Aruf's partners in ACBL tournaments.
Aruf has not won any ACBL MAsterpoints on bbo since oct 4, 2005, and less than 1 bbo point in all other tournaments in the year 2007. This clearly means the hands shown here are ancient. Since they are announced as acbl events, they are from 2004 and 2005, if they are real at all.
In addition, there can be alternative explainations besides cheating on a few of these hands even if there was cheating involved. Take the 6S example on hand 2. His partner opened 2C without the AKJ of hearts, the j of diamonds, and the Club ACE. That is 14 hcp. The opponent doubled 2D showning diamond values, lets quess five to seven points in diamonds. What does partner have? Solid spades and the KQJ long in clubs. Bidding slam is hardly a huge gamble, but he question is 6C, 6H, 6S, or 6NT. 6S is not a horrible gamble partner might only have four spades, but surely they would be AKQJ, so he has to hope for the diamond ACE as well (6S or 6NT both better than 6C, but not as good as 7N in that case). I don't agree with 6S, but it was by your admission a pickup partnership, and it is reasonable to assume wild distribution for the 2C bid given the auction to date.
And auction 3 seems reasonable to me, under alot of different methods. Some play 2C-2h as negative, so 2C-2NT can be hearts. Even if not hearts, 2NT is a fair description of the hand. Indeed in checking Aruf's hands, he frequently plays 2C-2h as negative.
It seems you have saved these hands for a very long time before posting them. And without stating if you examined the hand record for hands that are counter to the accusations you make here.
Disclaimer: I am a bbo yellow, but the comments posted above are those of mine alone. i do not represent the bbo in any way in making these observations.
I have added extensive comments under some of the example hands. Example 3 (which I discussed in Editorial 3 along with some important side issues), example 6, 8, 11, 15, and earlier I discussed a little bit under some of the late examples.
I think a fair reading of these post will at least cast a lot of doubt as to rather or not these examples (at least the ones I investigated) even come close to suggest that Aruf is cheating. In fact, the investigations basically prove for examples 3, 6, 8, 11 and 15 he clearly was not. This is why accusations like those made by Eric Nolf publically here is reckless and distasteful.
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