[Chas_P]

Apparently it's the love of masterpoints, not money, which is the root of all evil.

[timouthy]

diana_eva, on 2024-January-16, 02:49, said:

timouthy accusing players who are not here to defend themselves of unethical behavioiur is against the rules of the forums. You are welcome to theorize and discuss issues and propose solutions, but dont post names and accusations in the forums. For ACBL issues, you can contact acbl@bridgebase.com. For abuse, you can send your concerns to abuse@bridgebase.com.

I have contacted and reported this to ACBL today and will report back here when I hear back from them. By the way, you are welcome for the "detective work" I have done to highlight how to scam your tournaments to acquire masterpoints. No charge or thanks by you all is necessary.

[mycroft]

I wish you the best of luck in your new career of "scamming" a thing of literally zero value(*), by the simple expedient of:

• paying to play bridge (I assume you'll be paying your partner's entry too, given the givens; at least after the second time you do this);
  
• saddling your partner, deliberately and (I assume) with their foreknowledge, with whoever randomly is put in by the director(**);
  
• playing whatever system they can bang together in 20 seconds and between rounds(**);
  
• while you go do something enjoyable for 90 minutes or so, because clearly bridge isn't;
  
• and, if all of that is more successful than actually having you at the table, "coming back" for the last hand.

I mean, if it's so obvious that that's what people are doing; if it's such a "I turned $100 into $140 000 with this simple trick!" method that you're right to be this worried about it; then it must be because it's something you'd do if it was actually allowed.

People do notice, by the way; maybe not Diana Eva or BBO or the ACBL, but the people the "scammer" plays with and around. And bridge players gossip (boy howdy how do they gossip). Get that reputation, and people will be talking about you for*ever*, and not with respect for your Mad Gaming Skillz, of either meaning of the word "gaming".

I will note that "only playing teams, playing the first half of every match, then going to dinner and then to bed, putting in a player (of my choice, of course) to win matchpoints for me" is not only considered acceptable in bridge, but has been stated as "the only reason tournaments still exist" by some (frequently either those players or the ones they put in, oddly enough). I think it's long past time for that particular barn door to be effective. Also see my previous paragraph about "get that reputation, and."

Seriously, this is an issue, and BBO and the ACBL should be made aware of it. But it's also, seriously, "steals a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom" level of issue. More seriously, maybe there should be a way to split the masterpoints between the people who played (after all, the ACBL does this for 6-person teams and swiss events)(***). More seriously yet, PaulG has a point about "minimum hands played", but if it's a "blue moon" event, who cares? and if it's not, "why?"

(*) Okay, I'm paying a great deal of attention to masterpoints these past few months. It seems like Xeno's Paradox (but is more likely "watched pot"). But the odometer will tick over eventually; I'll get out, run around the car, and then they'll be back to being monsterpoints again. Even if I occasionally get paid to sell them.

(**)While my feeling is that the sub list is significantly better on BBO than the usual "people walking into the club for a game", if you've never been "the designated spare", go talk to someone who has about how much fun this is (and how likely it will be that they will do better than with their regular partner). I'll just say that the "standard price" for being the spare is a free game with a partner of their choosing, whether or not they get to play tonight (for free) or they get sent home.

(***)But again, see the last sentence of (*) (and the penultimate paragraph, for KOs).

[barmar]

I remember when we instituted the current policy (about a decade ago). BBO definitely does not "promote this kind of behavior intentionally." What do we have to gain from it? Why would we care who gets the masterpoints? And we don't actively publicize the policy, so I doubt most players even know about it.

While I appreciate that you think it's unfair that someone who only played 1 board should get the reward for the sub's work, they did pay the entry fee. You shouldn't sign up as a sub if your goal is to earn points -- it's something you do voluntarily to help keep the game moving smoothly in the face of unintentional dropouts.

Most of the time when someone gets disconnected, they either come back within a board or two because it was a temporary glitch (so they do end up playing most of the boards), or they're gone for the duration of the tourney (and the sub gets the points if they were put in before board 6). I think if you've encountered this situation where they dropped during board 1 and came back during 11 multiple times, you've been extremely unlucky.

I could be wrong, maybe your experience is more common than I think. Many of us were also surprised at the amount of online cheating that occurred during the pandemic.

[timouthy]

Barmar, Barmar, Barmar, Of course you would leave off the first part of my sentence ending in the word intentionally. You still don't get it because you have drunk the BBO Kool-aide. I used that sentence structure to 1. Allow the BBO/ACBL world to know what is going on and 2. to get you "expert managers/administrators" to pay attention to a scam that is either going on under your noses, or you all do already know this is going on and hope somebody like me dosen't come on your forum here and spill the beans. So will you now or anybody from BBO or ACBL come out and say it or not; namely that they have been aware of this possible scam already and just can't address it, or that this is the first time you have ever heard about it????????? Come on now be brave, it won't hurt a bit.

About another one of your points: Why subs should sign up to sub? Personally I don't need any more master points. Also I have had nothing but the best time on BBO. I have told many people that the learning curve on this site is like learning on mental steroids. I am also bridge promiscuous from this site in that I have probably had at least 1000 partners. And guess where I have found some of my best partners? Yes Barmar those who were also subbing in a tournament. So another reason to sub is that you are much more likely to find people that you can play successful bridge with.

Now about the point assignment, if you really don't want subs to have a shot at scoring master points as a sub, then why do you award them to them at all???? Of course that is a motivation for many (probably most) subs or you wouldn't get any quality subs at all. And instead of telling me I'm wrong about this, I challenge you to do the experiment.

[pilowsky]

Is there a bridge equivalent of the Kramnik award?
This thread is definitely an early contender.

[jillybean]

Possum?

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2024-January-14, 16:34, said:

Splitting the MPs proportionally based on how many hands each player has completed seems a straightforward enough solution.

Even better, split the MasterPoints proportionally based on the MatchPoints/IMPs accrued by each player in the hands they completed.

[timouthy]

I finally heard back from the ACBL today. First I got a clarification from them that it is BBO that makes the policy on masterpoint assignments in ACBL tournaments on their site when subs are involved, and not the ACBL. Also, ACBL is apparently either much more concerned about cheating at the regional, sectional, national level, that they either consider this shenanigan small potatoes, or they don't have time for it. So there you have it. As long as people know what goes on with subbing and how to do it to so that you can take advantage of it to acquire masterpoints(follow the model described previously in this post), help yourself. If you start a tourney with bad hand(s), take off and let some fool come and play until hand 12. Then come back for last hand and see what you have. If good enough to score MPS, you don't even have to bid on last hand. Just sit there and take an average hand. and Presto! collect MPs!

[mycroft]

I applaud the tenacity and care with which you have made people aware of this issue. Thanks for that.

But again I ask, "Sure, someone could do this. But why? Why would anybody? What do they get?"

I mean, in order to take advantage of this "loophole", one would have to be a person who is not only bad at bridge, but doesn't like playing either - and is willing *to pay* to to accumulate enough monsterpoints that achieving results in the future will be *harder* (by graduating into B or A).

If it were something like the iRacing scandal, where people brought in pros to run their races under their names, to qualify/remain qualified for the pro circuit, at least there's money involved. And these aren't pros, these are "whoever chooses to play in tournaments for free (sometimes a hand or two, sometimes an hour) by sitting at their computer and hoping to play pickup for connection-drops." I don't denigrate the pool of substitutes, but by and large they ain't making day 2 of an NABC+ event with a pickup, especially a pickup willing to support this scheme. So there's a limit to how often this will even work.

And again, if I were the partner, how often would I be willing to pay to be saddled with whoever so that you can go off for an hour and garden, accepting the points *I earned* by coming back at the end? Okay, they could pay both entries, but still, my time's worth more than 5 bucks/2 hours, even if I were retired.

And like the Chimp in Lamford's stories (again, I appreciate the tenacity that he applies to finding exploitable loopholes in the laws), how often will this happen before *everybody* around them notices? And is an insta-ban, when it eventually happens, going to be worth those what, 20? 30? ACBL Masterpoints™?

[pilowsky]

mycroft, on 2024-January-26, 11:55, said:

I applaud the tenacity and care with which you have made people aware of this issue. Thanks for that.

But again I ask, "Sure, someone could do this. But why? Why would anybody? What do they get?"

TBF - you did take the trouble to respond to this carefully crafted conspiracy theory.
So something got rewarded.

[pescetom]

pilowsky, on 2024-January-26, 14:29, said:

TBF - you did take the trouble to respond to this carefully crafted conspiracy theory.
So something got rewarded.

I think his point was that BBO and ACBL got rewarded, at the expense of honest players in general and sincere substitutes in particular.

[mycroft]

Well, that may be OPs point - and I absolutely give his "shouldn't the substitute get something?" credit here. Not sure how or if that can work.

What I don't see is how this can ever be a benefit for the non-substitute. Either you can't play, but want the points, and are willing to pay for them (but everybody knows the conversations and terms used for people that pay others to get points), or you can play, pay for the privilege, but don't enjoy it enough to actually do it.

And I still don't understand what the stay-in partner who has to play pickup all the time gets (I assume a lot more money - free games with substitutes pickups on a site where that is available 24/7 by *just not entering a tournament* seems to me like an auto-"yeah, or I could do something else. How about that?")

Add to that "you'll get a reputation. Get enough of a reputation, and someone will actually investigate. C&E is so much fun, and will likely lead to suspension (and removal of masterpoints) rather than any minor corrective." and I can't see this being done deliberately.

"I have bad internet, and frequently get kicked, but the times I don't get kicked I really enjoy playing tournaments. Do you mind gambling a bit?" - yeah, that I can see. At least until the gamble fails twice in a week or something, and then, see Para. 3. Also, see Para. 1 for "sure, the sub gets a raw deal. Maybe we should do something about that".

[chissimo]

diana_eva, on 2024-January-14, 15:53, said:

How about we try a more constructive discussion here,

Thank you for the suggestion. Idea:
We could really benefit from a user controlled filter by which one could allow/avoid invitations to sub from specific organizers. Frankly, there are times when the
sub regrets having subbed, having experienced shabby treatment (to put it diplomatically). If one experiences this multiple times via certain organizers (as one does),
the filter would allow avoidance of further unpleasantness.