[rhm]

cherdano, on 2015-August-28, 09:28, said:

This apparently included three false claims, including one that wasn't caught until after the correction period.

So you tell us a team in contention of winning a major US Bridge tournament is incapable of properly inspecting false claims made by a pair, which was tainted already for years, at the time of the claim nor within the correction period ?
Hard to believe, but if true my pity has limits. Serves them right.

Even in a club game if someone would make a false claim against me a second time in a row would make me suspicious.

Rainer Herrmann

[MrAce]

If Mike and Arend declares a ceasefire, BBF will no more be fun for me.

Please guys, keep up the good fight!

I would hate to see you guys writing each other like people do in BW, by starting ....

"Hi Mike.....you dishonest son of a...."
"Hi Arend.... you disrespectful mother..."

[barmar]

MrAce, on 2015-October-16, 04:11, said:

"Hi Mike.....you dishonest son of a...."
"Hi Arend.... you disrespectful mother..."

For those of us old enough to remember, the phrase is "Jane, you ignorant slut..."

http://www.nbc.com/s...-triola/2846665

1:07

[mikeh]

Over at BW, it looks very much as if Hammond has worked out a trigger mechanism used by Z. This is extremely important, since absent a trigger, the lack of consistency in B signalling allowed it to be possible that the gestures were unconscious. The sample size is still quite small,but the case looks more compelling than anything else to date.

Those who have been baying for blood will no doubt feel that their unwarranted confidence was prescient rather than ugly. Those of us who saw the problems with the evidence will now probably feel that their concerns have been successfully resolved.

Either way, if this holds up, this is both a sadand a promising day for bridge. An asymmetrical, sophisticated method seems to have been cracked, and two more cheaters have been unveiled. With so many now tarnished, are there more to come? Will we see an over-reaction? I hope not, for the first, and I expect not for the second. After all, if we all pay attention to the proprieties, it seems unlikely that anyone would wrongly start whispering, or am I being naive?

[gwnn]

It is bothering me that if commenter A considers x_A as the standard of proof while commenter B has x_B (where x_B>x_A), this apparently allows both A and B to deride the other endlessly. A can say that B is a climate-change denier and B can say that A is part of a lynch mob. They can both go into deep psychological investigations on where the obvious mental disabilities of the other side come from, is it from patriotism? A desire to be special? Is it mass hysteria? What if they are paid Norwegian/Polish/American shills?

Why can't we respect each other's slight differences with respect to standard of evidence without psychoanalysis and name-calling? I don't mind any objections to the main narratives or any objections to these objections, or any further iterations of these cycles. But why can't it simply be the case that different people have different subjective burdens of proof? It doesn't make person A naive or a part of mass hysteria and doesn't make person B a blind denier trying to grasp at straws. Sure enough, both of these categories of people exist in the world, but not necessarily here in this thread.

Also please anyone who wishes to reply to this please don't explain "confirmation bias" or "null hypothesis" or "falsifiability" to me as if I were a five-year old. I know what all of those things mean. I have also been rigorously checked by many professionals and they couldn't find any (serious) psychological disorders so now I have several stacks of paper proving I am sane. Thanks!

[PhantomSac]

mikeh, on 2015-October-16, 21:16, said:

With so many now tarnished, are there more to come?

There are more. One more obvious one that will be cracked with this system, then after that it will be much harder but the data suggests many more. I think those will take a lot longer/maybe never get caught if people won't accept statistical/data driven analysis as proof without a cracked code or portion of the code that is like 100 %.

[helene_t]

gwnn, on 2015-October-16, 23:37, said:

I have also been rigorously checked by many professionals and they couldn't find any (serious) psychological disorders so now I have several stacks of paper proving I am sane.

[MrAce]

helene_t, on 2015-October-17, 00:50, said:

I am not convinced! I want to see the paper closer! There is no way Csaba is sane!!

[Trinidad]

MrAce, on 2015-October-17, 03:21, said:

I am not convinced! I want to see the paper closer! There is no way Csaba is sane!!

So, your requirement for the burden of proof is different from Helene's. But since Helene tried to prove a double negative (Csaba is not insane), I am getting really confused whether I should now label you as "naive" or "part of a lych mob"!

Rik

[cherdano]

gwnn, on 2015-October-16, 23:37, said:

It is bothering me that if commenter A considers x_A as the standard of proof while commenter B has x_B (where x_B>x_A), this apparently allows both A and B to deride the other endlessly. A can say that B is a climate-change denier and B can say that A is part of a lynch mob. They can both go into deep psychological investigations on where the obvious mental disabilities of the other side come from, is it from patriotism? A desire to be special? Is it mass hysteria? What if they are paid Norwegian/Polish/American shills?

Why can't we respect each other's slight differences with respect to standard of evidence without psychoanalysis and name-calling? I don't mind any objections to the main narratives or any objections to these objections, or any further iterations of these cycles. But why can't it simply be the case that different people have different subjective burdens of proof? It doesn't make person A naive or a part of mass hysteria and doesn't make person B a blind denier trying to grasp at straws. Sure enough, both of these categories of people exist in the world, but not necessarily here in this thread.

The dispute between Mikeh and me (I know you aren't just referring to that) wasn't just about standard of proof. I do think we also had a serious disagreement about how strong the evidence was. (Part of that may be due to the fact that I spend some time looking at the bidding gap hypothesis myself.)

To take a random comparison: I am convinced that even before Hammond's recent post, the evidence against B-Z was stronger than, say, the evidence based on which Aaron Hernandez was convicted for murder. But here I mean "stronger" in the sense of the actual merits of the evidence, not on the likelihood that it would convince a jury - you need a lot of skills (bridge, statistics, common sense about likely cheating methods) to come to that conclusion. [Plus of course it could be that the actual evidence against Hernandez was stronger than I realize - I only read a few articles about it, and don't know everything that was presented at trial.]

[gwnn]

The paper says "Certificate of insanity" for the dyslexic. It is from a sad period of my life and I resent the fact that helene_t is now resorting to mud-slinging too.

Spoiler

Anyway, the psychoanalysis can continue.

[Fluffy]

Not only I spent a lot of time with the gap theory, but also I had a testimony from a polish friend that Balicki mocked him for "not knowing if partner's lead was singleton or doubleton" about 20 years ago. This might had influenced me on believing proof was sounder than it actually was.

[nullve]

It would be nice to have good names for different views expressed here and on BW about what it takes to prove (table behaviour-restricted) cheating. I'll go first and propose the names 'emissionism' and 'transmissionism' for the views that in order to prove cheating, it's sufficient to prove that an illegal signal has been given ("emitted") and transmitted, respectively, and 'collusionism' for the view that in order to prove cheating, one must prove not only that an illegal signal has been transmitted, but also that the signal was preagreed.

This post has been edited by nullve: 2015-October-17, 08:05

[mikeh]

cherdano, on 2015-October-17, 04:27, said:

The dispute between Mikeh and me (I know you aren't just referring to that) wasn't just about standard of proof. I do think we also had a serious disagreement about how strong the evidence was. (Part of that may be due to the fact that I spend some time looking at the bidding gap hypothesis myself.)

To take a random comparison: I am convinced that even before Hammond's recent post, the evidence against B-Z was stronger than, say, the evidence based on which Aaron Hernandez was convicted for murder. But here I mean "stronger" in the sense of the actual merits of the evidence, not on the likelihood that it would convince a jury - you need a lot of skills (bridge, statistics, common sense about likely cheating methods) to come to that conclusion. [Plus of course it could be that the actual evidence against Hernandez was stronger than I realize - I only read a few articles about it, and don't know everything that was presented at trial.]

I agree that I don't think the main issue was standard of proof: it was strength of evidence. I accepted that there was suggestive evidence on the gap theory, but my understanding was that the sample available on BW was modest in size, and Woolsey's, no fan of BZ, wrote that he couldn''t see anything persuasive. My own view didn't matter....the point was that when a competent observer such as Kit, who clearly suspected cheating, didn't agree that there was persuasive evidence, then IMO it would be wrong to infer guilt without more. On the 5 card suit theory, absent a trigger or similar evidence, it was plausible that what we were seeing was not intentional. I never said that I thought they were innocent. I merely said that we needed more evidence....whichever way the evidence pointed. Now, it appears that we have it. As mentioned in another post, this is both good and sad news.

Actually, Justin's post is the saddest....if he, part of the top level community, believes there to be a lot more cheating, my heart sinks. Even if we catch them all, I can't help but feel betrayed. My outrage surely pales in comparison to that of the truly WC players who do not cheat, and knew that the game was rigged against them in every event.

[mikeh]

gwnn, on 2015-October-16, 23:37, said:

Also please anyone who wishes to reply to this please don't explain "confirmation bias" or "null hypothesis" or "falsifiability" to me as if I were a five-year old. I know what all of those things mean. I have also been rigorously checked by many professionals and they couldn't find any (serious) psychological disorders so now I have several stacks of paper proving I am sane. Thanks!

I tried explaining null hypothesis to a 5 year old. I advise against it: it didn't go well. Of course, I didn't expect it to, so maybe my result is really an example of the effect of confirmation bias.

[Trinidad]

mikeh, on 2015-October-17, 08:02, said:

I tried explaining null hypothesis to a 5 year old. I advise against it: it didn't go well. Of course, I didn't expect it to, so maybe my result is really an example of the effect of confirmation bias.

IANAPST,

Spoiler

I am not a preschool teacher

but how about:

"Scientists often want to see if two things have something to do with each other. You can think about:
- what time it is and whether it is night or day
- how warm it is and whether it is summer or winter
- how big something is and how heavy it is (are big things also heavy things?)
- color of a car and how fast it goes

and a lot of other things.

So, how does a scientist look whether two things have something to do with each other? A very good way to do that is to use a "null hypothesis". That is a difficult word, but it really is very simple.

When a scientist wants to see if two things have something to do with each other, then he first thinks that the two things don't have anything to do with each other. Then he tries to find something that shows that his thinking is wrong. As long as he doesn't find that his thinking is wrong, then the harder he tries, the more certain he is that his thinking was right: the two things don't have anything to do with each other. But If he does find that his thinking is wrong then that means that the two things have something to do with each other.

It is as easy as that."

Rik

[gwnn]

mikeh, on 2015-October-17, 08:02, said:

I tried explaining null hypothesis to a 5 year old. I advise against it: it didn't go well. Of course, I didn't expect it to, so maybe my result is really an example of the effect of confirmation bias.

Your hypotheses are unfalsifiable!

PS Trinidad: aren't you explaining "arguing from the null" to the 5-year old there?

I wouldn't really try with a five-year old but when I do explain statistics to people I usually start with a fair/unfair coin. Correlation is a bit more abstract. Then again, "Imagine you toss the coin 100x100 times" can get a bit abstract too.

[blackshoe]

Trinidad, on 2015-October-17, 03:37, said:

So, your requirement for the burden of proof is different from Helene's. But since Helene tried to prove a double negative (Csaba is not insane), I am getting really confused whether I should now label you as "naive" or "part of a lych mob"!

Rik

Hm. Can a lynch mob consist of people who are naive?

[billw55]

PhantomSac, on 2015-October-17, 00:24, said:

There are more. One more obvious one that will be cracked with this system, then after that it will be much harder but the data suggests many more. I think those will take a lot longer/maybe never get caught if people won't accept statistical/data driven analysis as proof without a cracked code or portion of the code that is like 100 %.

mikeh, on 2015-October-17, 07:58, said:

Actually, Justin's post is the saddest....if he, part of the top level community, believes there to be a lot more cheating, my heart sinks. Even if we catch them all, I can't help but feel betrayed. My outrage surely pales in comparison to that of the truly WC players who do not cheat, and knew that the game was rigged against them in every event.

It is not a matter of belief IMO. It is a statistical certainty. I was saying this already when the doctors were caught. If you catch one pair or a few, there are for sure others that are undetected.

Maybe hrothgar is right after all, that separate rooms and tablets is the only way to stop this.

[Trinidad]

I would not object to playing sitting with my "screen mate" next to a touch screen showing what is going on at "the other side of the screen" in a standardized form, with scanners in the table that register what bids are made and what cards are played. Add a button for alerts and a keyboard for explanations (so that they are recorded), and some other features (e.g. "Do you mind if we take a break?"). In addition, some form of communication "through the screen" should be possible as long as no one has picked up their cards.

I would object to sitting all alone, or sitting with all the West players in one room. I like to see my screen mate (my partner I will see enough anyway ).

Rik