[Stephen Tu]

Lately I've been practicing a lot against the robots (Sorry for jamming the "recent topics added" with my GIB forum bug reports!). Say in the course of this, I discover a member who is apparently gaming some main bridge club hands vs. other robots, switching back and forth between North and South and bidding both hands, getting fantastically good results on average & perpetrating a fair # of bizarre impossible auctions. (I found this person, after blasting into a slam, and wondering how other tables would tackle the problem, looked at how other people handled it, and found a particularly fantastic auction).

Now I don't really see why anyone would bother to do this, there's nothing to win in the main bridge club and the exercise seems kind of pointless. And it's not against any human pairs, the only real effect is introducing some extra noise into the traveller, probably depressing other people's average scores a few percent on the boards this person is playing.

Should I care? Should I report to abuse@bridgebase.com ? Or just let weird people do their weird things, since it doesn't really affect anything but a small hit on my average which doesn't really matter for anything anyway?

[Hanoi5]

Report

[Antrax]

Report, let BBO staff figure out whether it's worth intervening.

[ArtK78]

In many ways, that person is playing with himself.

[Bbradley62]

I agree with the others: report it.

[Snowgoon]

'switching back and forth between North and South and bidding both hands'

This should not be possible at any normal table and is obviously a serious program bug which needs fixing quickly!

A more likely explanation is that this person has logged-in twice (possibly using two identical identities) and is sitting in 2 seats at the same table - another serious program bug......in fact, this one is a game-killer

[inquiry]

Snowgoon, on 2012-May-23, 07:16, said:

'switching back and forth between North and South and bidding both hands'

This should not be possible at any normal table and is obviously a serious program bug which needs fixing quickly!

A more likely explanation is that this person has logged-in twice (possibly using two identical identities) and is sitting in 2 seats at the same table - another serious program bug

It can be done, I will not bother to explain how, but it is quite simple... but is silly and a bit slow. Easier to do what you suggested I guess if this is your goal.

[barmar]

You shouldn't be able to login twice with the same username (it doesn't let me do it, and I'm a yellow). But you can login with different usernames -- I've done that a number of times (not to cheat, just for testing purposes).

[mr1303]

Does anyone else have the viewpoint that if this person wants to do it, we should just let him? Does your score in the main bridge club really matter that much, particularly if you're playing with robots?

[gwnn]

mr1303, on 2012-May-25, 00:14, said:

Does anyone else have the viewpoint that if this person wants to do it, we should just let him? Does your score in the main bridge club really matter that much, particularly if you're playing with robots?

To some people, it does, so it makes sense to try to reduce cheating.

[helene_t]

If in doubt, just report it. The only harm it might cause is that it vastes a few secs of abuse's time until they dismiss it.

Personally I don't care. Of course it creates a bias to the travellers but main room travellers are so noisy anyway. And it's not like thousands of players will do the same if it isn't stopped.