[Quantumcat]

My partner and I like to use BBO for partnership bidding, and for playing sometimes since we can get through 5 times as many boards on BBO as at the local bridge club in a similar amount of time. I thought it might be fun to play a tournament, but am concerned that since we are using the same internet connection (him on his computer, me on mine - in different rooms) someone could accuse us of cheating. But then I thought people could be on the phone too so maybe no one cares? After all tournaments would go pretty fast and there wouldn't be time to use the information someone was giving you, if you were cheating? Anyway I just want to know if we enter a tournament and we are on the same internet connection, whether anyone is going to accuse us of cheating. Cause I'd rather not enter if that is a risk. Thanks in advance for any replies :-)

[mgoetze]

Uhm, there will always be someone willing to accuse you of cheating whether you are on the same internet connection or not - in fact they won't know the difference, since only BBO Yellows can actually tell. So if you are worried about cheating accusations you had better not play online bridge at all.

(OTOH I have no idea why you would care.)

[Bbradley62]

mgoetze, on 2012-April-29, 07:17, said:

Uhm, there will always be someone willing to accuse you of cheating whether you are on the same internet connection or not - in fact they won't know the difference, since only BBO Yellows can actually tell. So if you are worried about cheating accusations you had better not play online bridge at all.

(OTOH I have no idea why you would care.)

FYP

[Quantumcat]

I don't think anyone would care too much playing normal online bridge - if there are no prizes at stake, who cares if anyone is cheating? If you think they are you can just boot them and get some new opponents (or not - it might sharpen your declaring skills if every deal is like playing Bridge Master!). But I thought people might care if there is an entry fee with prizes at stake. It wouldn't matter much to me if I got accused of cheating, but my partner is a minor personality in the small world of Australian bridge and cares about his reputation. Your reply wasn't very helpful and did nothing to alleviate my concerns so I will stay away from tournaments and stick to playing against GIBs.

[inquiry]

HI, qCat...

Don't give it a second thought. Go ahead and play from the same location. There are 100's of pairs of people playing from the same isp every day --- maybe even 1000's. Our own Fred and Sheri play from their home all the time (most often against robots however). Others from a college, sometimes it is an internet cafe, but most of the time it is a single house. This is not a problem at all. There are many ways to cheat besides playing from the same location, that no one worries about the location you play from.

Should your play suggest that you are sharing information, the fact that you are playing from the same location would not be any sort of key factor in any investigation into rather you were sharing information (and would at most be very minor factor only if there was strong evidence of UI in you bidding or play).

While as someone suggested yellows COULD figure out that you are playing from the same ISP, there is no reason they would ever look and if they did look, they are not allowed to share that information anyone who is not a yellow (i KNOW, i am a yellow).

So pick a tournament, free or otherwise, and test your mettle.