Mircea Petrescu posted a comment on the 1st editorial in this blog.
We felt his remarks are interesting enough to warrant a reply in this editorial.
> All the online examples I've seen are from ACBL sanctioned tournaments. Has anyone contacted ACBL?
Several people told us they filed complaints about Aruf with ACBL and/or BBO. They all reported the same result: standard ACBL and BBO policy is to shoot the messenger, rather than to acknowledge something could be wrong and to investigate.
This is exactly our experience in numerous other (sometimes even worse, believe it or not) cases from the pre-Aruf era. We simply can't be bothered to try again.
Having said that, we would like to have some tangible evidence that Aruf was reported to ACBL and/or BBO - it might come in handy someday.
We would be grateful if people who filed a complaint against Aruf can inform us, either by posting on this blog or by sending us an email. In the latter case we guarantee confidentiality.
> 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.
Unless Aruf holds an ACBL membership (and we don't know if he does) there's nothing ACBL can do, except trying to keep him away from their tournaments. However, as Aruf could easily enter under another nick this would require the co-operation of BBO - and we wouldn't bet on anything like that happening.
The bottom line is, neither ACBL nor BBO are interested in cases like this and we suspect the main reason is: money. Having people with the necessary expertise investigating cases is not going to be cheap (you don't want to know how much time was spent compiling our file on Aruf) and kicking out people like Aruf has another drawback: he won't be entering paid tournaments anymore.
This last argument is of minor importance here as Aruf played only 150 or so ACBL tournaments on BBO. But we have 100s of other cases of blatant cheating in paid tournaments on BBO, sometimes by idiots who have been doing this in 1000s of tournaments - and we're thinking about possibilities to publish these cases to expose the paid tournaments for the scams they really are.
We know Aruf is Mehmet Faruk Kepekci, a member of the Turkish under-25 team for the European Junior Championships starting today. Therefore he must be a member of the Turkish Bridge Federation, and THEY are responsible for investigating his case.
In an ideal world TBF would have received the tip-off from an ACBL taking its own responsibility - but this is not an ideal world and so they received the tip-off from us instead. It's all water under the bridge ... they won't act, unless public opinion finally forces them to.
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1 comment:
First, let me start off by saying that the BBO has a vested interest in removing cheaters from their pay tournaments. There is ample evidence that people will choose not to play if they feel like (or believe) that cheating is rampant. The BBO has in the past, and will in the future remove cheaters from the site the best they can. As Eric Nolf well knows, as long as the BBO has "free access", anyone with a tad bit of computer savvy can find ways to bypass the various ways bbo bans people.
The BBO, unlike ERIC, has a strict policy of proving that cheating is going on before they take action. They have a fairly long list of likely (suspected) cheaters that are being watched carefully. And many people have been thrown off for cheating. The bbo, in general, issues a two year ban for cheating, but people who are caught, and who "confess" are usually given a second chance with a much shorter duration of ban. Not always -- but often. Another step the BBO takes is only allow certain "suspected" cheaters to only be able to use one nickname. This cuts down on self-kibitzing. They also have gone to banning kibitzers in many events to prevent self-kibitizing.
As far as why Eric hasn't reported this case to the bbo or the acbl. I know that the BBO and I assume, but don't know for sure, the ACBL too, will not listen to complaints of cheating from Occo Eric Nolf. There are reason for this, at least for the BBO. Eric is reckless with his allegations. For example, the claim in this blog stating matter of factly that the two Aydogdu brothers are cheating.
Allegations of cheating should be, 1) private to the authories in question, 2) only made with convinceing evidence. Eric Nolf was a useful crusader against online cheating at bridge. He has had some great successes. But his method of analysis is reckless, and his method of "outing" people -- like in this thread, can be quite inappropri9ate.
Let's take the current blog as an example. Between May 4 2004 and Dec 20, 2004 Aruf played 2948 tournament hands on the BBO. From Dec 21, 2004 up until July 1 2005, he played another 876 hands. For the record, he managed -0.14 imps on 482 hands and only 54.14% MP on 394 hands in this second time frame. These are not statistics consitent with a good player who is also cheating.
Out of these 3800+ hands Eric has pulled out 24 examples. We can all admit that some of these hands look "curious". I use that term to indicate that those curious hands would suggest an examination to deteremine if ui had existed. Other of these hands hardly suggest anything. Lets assume that 50% of these hands are 'curious" that would be eric found 12 hands out of 3800 plus hands (he suggest there is a lot more, i haven't seen evidence of lots of them).
There is also a "slanderous" ntature of this claim. That claim is that it is clear cheating is goin on because Aruf wins everytime he plays. This is demonstratably untrue. Furhter, the correct way to show a person is cheating is make a study of the event he is supposedly cheating in to see evidence 1) that he is cheating, and 2) to confirm that there is no evidence that he is can not be cheating. The reason you have to look at the hands in events is it is possible a player will "cheat" sometimes (say on weekends in ACBL events), but not at other times. Someone who cheats all the time is fairly easy to catch.
There is plenty of evidence in ACBL tournaments that suggest that aruf was not cheating in at least some events. one example is this hand from March 26th 2005 tourname nt....
Partner
S-KJTxx
H-984
D-Q42
C-AJ
Aruf
S-AQ9
H-AQT62
D-A98
c-43
Here Aruf's partner opened 1S and after an auction where Aruf bid hearts, raised spades, then used blackwood, he bid 6S. West with KJxx of hearts doubled and Aruf redoubled. This was easily down 3 for -1600 points. It is unquestionable that on this hand, aruf didn't have any UI.
Here is a hand from June 6, 2005 acbl event where aruf made a penalty double of 3NT on the auction 1S-p-2h-p-2Nt-p-3NT-x-all pass. He held S-xxx H-AJxxx D-Kx C-AQx. Presumably the double was for a heart lead (smart), unfortunately his opponents have 9 top tricks, not funny stuff needed, and a club trick can be easily developed for a 10th trick. No one would double this contract seeing all four hands.
To give an example of what i mean, lets take a look at Quiz #3. This hand was played on december 27, 2004. aruf's partner was otto02. In 12 boards, they averaged 45.03% and obviously finished up at the bottom of the event (far from slaying all who comes before him). And just looking at board 6 of that event shows ample evidence that ARUF was not taking advantage of UI. He held S-xx H-A9 D-QJT8xxxx C-A, I can show the full hands below, 3NT his way is unbreakable, 5D can make on the normal heart lead but only if aruf ducks the heart lead at trick one. He didn't bid 3NT and he didn't duck the heart lead, and as a result went down one for a 14% score. Anyone seeing all four hands would easily make it. This is the type of hands that you also have to look for.
Otto02- S-KQ85 H-xxx D-Ax C-QJxx
EAST = S-Txx H-KQJTxx D-x C-Txx
Aruf = -xx H-A9 D-QJT8xxxx C-A
WEST = AJ9x H-54 D-K6 C-K9864
opening lead H-5, ace wins, Spade to trick two, West grabs Ace. heart to the Queen, and heart for trump promotion of the diamond king. simply duck trick one, no way to touch it.
I hope the open minded people will read these comments and realize that while some of the hands are "curious", this entire blog proves nothing but that Eric Nolf's accusations can be unfounded, at least cleary on quiz 3, and actually on others as well. Never try to take one hand out of context of a full event and draw any conclusions other than that futher investigation is needed.
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