[thomas c]

i kib a lot for various. last night i was kibbing a pair i really think are great playing in a team against 2 starred players. after a few hands one of the starred players started saying he thought
the south player was "seeing the hands". by the last board his partner was agreeing. they were losing at the time. now i do not believe the south player was cheating in any way. he iw
one of the best players on bbo, starred or not. but what do you do? i did send a comment to the other kibs that he NEVER cheats cause he is just too good a player. but i think it is a
shame that he got accused with 50 or more kibs looking on(actually with or without). is it up to the players to report to bbo help or should i ? i admit im still bothered by this today.
tom

[The_Badger]

You did your best given the circumstances. If the starred players sent a message to the kibs only, as opposed to the table, alleging that something untoward was happening, then that in my view is just a cheap shot and a case of sour grapes because they were losing.

Out of the 50 or so kibs watching the table, I would bet my bottom dollar that a friend of the player accused in question has seen what you have seen and might have already relayed to his friend about the snide comments made.

Except if you personally know this player, I feel you have done your bit. I wouldn't get involved beyond that.

[mikeh]

No way to really know whether there was merit to the accusations: one would need to know all the hands and se what it was that prompted the concern. I remember, many years ago now, my then serious partner and I used to practice on OKBridge, since we lived in different cities. We played several pairs who were clearly cheating: they'd bid silly slams that made when everything was onside, and stayed out of good contracts that failed, and made incredible leads. OKBridge was notorious for cheating.

However, the remedies include leaving the game and/or reporting one's suspicions to BBO. They ought not to include public accusations of cheating. Such accusations demonstrate incredibly poor ethics. Moreover, if made to the kibs and not to the opps, they evince cowardly behavior. While accusations should be dealt with by reporting (with full disclosure of what was going on) and not by calling out the suspects in public, calling them out behind their backs is even worse.

If I were ever sufficiently pissed off that I would voice my concern (and I hope I would never be so pissed off), rather than quit, I'd hopefully ask, as politely as possible in the circumstances: can you explain to me why you did such and such?

Having a star, btw, is no assurance of being an expert. There are a lot of players with stars who, in my view, are no better than advanced. Note that I say that as someone with a star: read into that what you will. Moreover, there are some more than capable players who don't have stars, probably because they don't want one.

Some players, when losing, will instinctively want to think that they are being cheated rather than admit that they are losing to players they view as weaker.

Was that going on here? I don't know and I don't care. While I despise cheaters, these complainers are almost as bad, in my eyes, as cheaters, because they cannot 'know' with absolute certainty that they are being cheated, and their opps are being slandered behind their backs. That's crap.

I think you can, if you choose, report the incident to BBO Abuse.