[nullve]

 gwnn, on 2015-October-21, 06:06, said:

Putting the board on the other side of the screen to signal for a club lead can be an unconscious tell?

You're using intentional language here, already suggesting that the board was put on the other side of the screen deliberately, i.e. that it couldn't possibly be just a tell. But maybe your point is, as your examples suggest, that tells in bridge always consist of rather inconspicuous and involuntary motion, like nervous shaking. Then I want to remind you that in poker, very conspicuous and seemingly deliberate behaviour like drinking from a bottle can also be a reliable tell. So why not in bridge?

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And how will partner possibly understand it?

In a true von Osten-Clever Hans-like partnership, there is no understanding at all! But the Clever Hans-like player will have learnt to use the tells to his advantage, maybe through something like operant conditioning.

[barmar]

While almost anything is possible (there's lots we still don't know about human psychology), I suspect that the signals that relate to specific suits are more likely to be deliberate. It seems like subconscious thoughts would more likely be about qualitative aspects ("good hand" versus "bad hand") than specific quantitative features (e.g. the number of hearts). Subconscious thoughts and actions are also often primed by context -- a tell might be related to the most recent suit bid, rather than always the same specific suit.

And we should also consider how "natural" the physical actions are. The Reese/Shapiro finger signals take some effort to pull of, and they were way too strongly correlated with a specific suit to be unconscious.

[gwnn]

Barmar explains it already very well but since I can't upvote him I need to reply as well.

Again, there is a very big difference between the following two situations:

a) It goes (in perfectly normal tempo)
1♦-p-1♥-p
4♥-4♠-5♥-p
p-???
I'm sitting there, slowly growing irritated, partly due to partner's "imaginative" bidding (which usually shows a lot of spades and a self-deception about his ability to "get more information by passing), and partly that apparently he doesn't care about my decision to pass over 5♥. I'm sitting, waiting, knowing that the more time passes the less likely partner is going to pass out 5♥ (I have something like an 1354 4-count so would really prefer partner to pass. we may even set 5♥). I'm getting pissed off and doing my best not to show it. I don't know how well I manage. {Eventually, as you may imagine, he does bid 5♠ and goes for 500 against -420 at matchpoints, and bemoans that he "couldn't have known whether I have a singleton or a trebleton." Well, at least we are not cheating.}
b) I have AK of hearts and I put down the board on the side of the aperture on the screen. I continuously do this and arrange the board when I see that the board is not at the side enough.

There might be middling cases, such as "I led a singleton, my partner won the ace and I'm waiting for his return. I don't understand what he's thinking about and I really just want him to do the <<normal>> thing, i.e., returning my lead." This is perhaps more related to the case of "specific holding in a suit" but this is still a question of me wanting to have partner do something that is somehow the default action in a hand.

So maybe that is what I am saying: is there a "default action I expect partner to do?"

In the case of Clever Hans, yes, there is. I want him to neigh at a specific time. I know that the owner did not think he was giving Hans this information, and he did not think he was passing a message, but there is no doubt that the owner did want to see him neigh at a particular moment (much like I want my daughter to do well in gymnastics, I am eager to see her succeed). When partner is sitting there thinking what to do, clearly there are only two (or three) options available, and the default one is pass. I just want him to do what he's supposed to (i.e., not bid his hand twice) and maybe I give away this eagerness. But this is still not a very well encoded message about a particular suit or who knows what.

Of course, it is possible that there is some sort of evolutionary mechanism where I scratch my head every time I have 5 hearts, and I play with a lot of bridge with a lot of partners, and the ones who unconsciously always play me for 5 hearts when I scratch my head unconsciously, I score a tiny bit better with those partners so I will tend to those partners, and so on. But do you really think this is a plausible scenario? We can theoretize all we want, and I cannot prove to you logically that B/Z aren't the people who show 5 fingers whenever the number "5" enters in their minds, but this doesn't quite add up.

[gwnn]

Furthermore you are neglecting the fact that in the case of BZ there are a few instances where they actually adjust the gaps between the bidding cards. It looks quite suspicious. Actually the "bidding gaps" theory is the only case in which I'd be a bit on board with the perhaps unconscious idea but the adjusting is pretty damning. Of course it could be the case that my unconscious mind tells me that the "proper place" of the cards is well-spaced, and this "proper place" that my unconscious mind suggests could change from board to board as a function of strength, and when the bidding card is not where its "proper place" is, I'd adjust consciously for no reason I could name, but can't you see how many ifs and weird suppositions I needed to make? I can rationalize anything you want, just tell me something and I can rationalize it, but some rationalizations are more rational than others.

[gwnn]

Stuff where I'd be on board with your unconscious/Clever Hans idea:
- some people play random spot cards messily and play signalling cards (the ones that actually mean something) very deliberately. This could just mean that they consider the signalling cards somehow "more valuable" so they handle them gently. Of course it could also mean that they are trying to get partner to notice the cards, which would be cheating, but I'm OK with giving them the benefit of the doubt.
- playing singletons could have a different hand motion. this is actually something I spend a fair bit of time worrying about (for myself). For example, picking out a singleton could be done a bit more carefully as missing a card could end in a revoke, while picking out a random spot from five is a more error-tolerant endeavor.
- many many other stuff

Showing 5 fingers to show 5 hearts? Very implausible. Putting the board on my side of the screen when I want a spade lead? No sorry I don't buy it. I would not buy it even if you gave me free money with it.

[barmar]

A way in which I could imagine the Clever Hans effect applying could be in how a player holds their cards. Many of us naturally fidget between holding the cards fanned out or folded together, sometimes leaning forward or back. It's not implausible that these could be influenced by your emotional reaction to your hand -- if your hand is very weak, you might not keep it fanned as much, because there's nothing to see there. And other players may pick up on this kind of tell.

And like Clever Hans's handler, you're very likely to have different visible reactions to bids and plays by the other players. Hans noticed that his handler's posture and facial expressions changed slightly when he was at the correct answer to a question, and stopped tapping. These reactions are probably related to the kinds of unconscious physiological changes that lie detectors detect.

[cherdano]

May I make the modest proposal that any action that is, for an outside observer, indistinguishable from cheating shall be considered cheating?

[nullve]

 barmar, on 2015-October-21, 11:17, said:

if your hand is very weak, you might not keep it fanned as much, because there's nothing to see there.

I caught myself doing exactly that the last time I played offline.

[gwnn]

 nullve, on 2015-October-20, 06:10, said:

The hidden game of "rock-paper-scissors" in a game of bridge with bidding boxes:

Players: the two members of a bridge partnership

Moves: gaps between consecutive bids by one player that are either

* 'small' (plays the role of, say, 'rock')
* 'mid-sized' (plays the role of, say, 'paper')
* 'large' (plays the role of, say, 'scissors')

Since the players take turns to bid and thereby make a physical move in this game, it's not at first sight a simultaneous game like "real" rock-paper-scissors. But as long as the players focus on the bids instead of the gaps, the last player to move will have no advantage except possibly due to subconscious effects. So at least we can pretend it's a simultaneous game, albeit one played unwittingly.

I still have absolutely no idea what this is supposed to mean and I have read it four times already.

In RPS you have an advantage if you can predict your opponent's next move. In bridge, what advantage could I possibly get from knowing whether my partner's next move is small, mid-sized, or large? Are you saying that at some point one partner may start to mirror, counteract, or otherwise predictably respond to his/her partner's bidding gaps? That is not the allegation. What are you talking about? I have no doubt that you understand what your post means but I think a lot of other people have a difficulty understanding. Why can't you explain what your point is in plain English?

[nullve]

 gwnn, on 2015-October-21, 14:29, said:

Why can't you explain what your point is in plain English?

Sorry for being cryptic.

I was just trying to rebut the view that

"If someone is cheating, do we have to disclose their full method to prove guilty? No, we don't.Since B-Z use 3 ways to bid(small, normal, large gaps), so if they are innocent they are doing it unconsciously, and it will be quite random. If evidence show that randomness is violated then it is serious, regardless of the exact meaning." (http://bridgewinners...ng-gap-issue-3/)

by likening this bidding gap thing to a game of RPS played unwittingly, i.e. not played in order to win or anything. The whole point of the comparison was to suggest that since humans suck at RPS, any bridge player must also suck at randomly choosing a move from the set [small gap, normal gap, large gap}. Hence by the poster's own argument, every bridge player must be cheating, something we know isn't true.

[gwnn]

 nullve, on 2015-October-21, 16:14, said:

Sorry for being cryptic.

I was just trying to rebut the view that

"If someone is cheating, do we have to disclose their full method to prove guilty? No, we don't.Since B-Z use 3 ways to bid(small, normal, large gaps), so if they are innocent they are doing it unconsciously, and it will be quite random. If evidence show that randomness is violated then it is serious, regardless of the exact meaning." (http://bridgewinners...ng-gap-issue-3/)

by likening this bidding gap thing to a game of RPS played unwittingly, i.e. not played in order to win or anything. The whole point of the comparison was to suggest that since humans suck at RPS, any bridge player must also suck at randomly choosing a move from the set [small gap, normal gap, large gap}. Hence by the poster's own argument, every bridge player must be cheating, something we know isn't true.

This sounds like "people suck at choosing truly random numbers of cereals they pour at a bowl" or "people are terrible at choosing how many times to wipe their shoes during polishing." There are reasonable values in both cases (1 is too little, 1000 is too much), and we "choose" within this set, but we don't consciously try to make them random. In RPS, people are actively trying to come up with random variables and that is probably why they fail to do so. I don't know why getting some data with natural variance would suffer from this. Also, sorry for the outburst before, I was moody.

[nullve]

 barmar, on 2015-October-21, 09:46, said:

While almost anything is possible (there's lots we still don't know about human psychology), I suspect that the signals that relate to specific suits are more likely to be deliberate. It seems like subconscious thoughts would more likely be about qualitative aspects ("good hand" versus "bad hand") than specific quantitative features (e.g. the number of hearts).

Agree. But if a bridge-playing environment is anything like a Skinner box with e.g. good boards as positive reinforcers, I can't see why suit-specific tells couldn't emerge in principle, or even be expected to emerge, over thousands of boards. (Not that I know a lot about operant conditioning, but...)

[Zelandakh]

Sorry nullve but you are not making any sense in this thread at all. Everyone here must have met club players that place their first bid far to the left when they have a big hand (and therefore expect to bid a lot) or those that just throw their pass on the table when they expect the auction to finish. Most are not doing it consciously but it is most certainly not random either. It should not happen at international level where there is greater awareness but non-random is not automatically the same as cheating. Nor do I understand where RPS comes into things. The analogy seems to be completely bogus as far as I can tell.

[barmar]

 nullve, on 2015-October-21, 13:21, said:

I caught myself doing exactly that the last time I played offline.

Just don't do it when playing online, you'll crack the screen.

[barmar]

 cherdano, on 2015-October-21, 11:55, said:

May I make the modest proposal that any action that is, for an outside observer, indistinguishable from cheating shall be considered cheating?

This is similar to the philosophy behind a "Probst cheater". If someone does something that's apparently the same as something a deliberate cheater would do, and they gain as a result, we have to rule as if they were cheating, even if it was actually inadvertent, because we aren't mind readers and can't tell the difference.

[nullve]

 Zelandakh, on 2015-October-22, 08:12, said:

Everyone here must have met club players that place their first bid far to the left when they have a big hand (and therefore expect to bid a lot) or those that just throw their pass on the table when they expect the auction to finish. Most are not doing it consciously but it is most certainly not random either.

Agree.

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It should not happen at international level where there is greater awareness

No, but does it or does it not? Is bridge different from poker in this respect?

Quote

but non-random is not automatically the same as cheating.

Of course not. But several posters on Bridgewinners have implied that. That's why I came up with the RPS analogy.

Quote

Nor do I understand where RPS comes into things. The analogy seems to be completely bogus as far as I can tell.

Consider the RPS analogy slightly off-topic.

[nullve]

 gwnn, on 2015-October-21, 10:52, said:

Of course, it is possible that there is some sort of evolutionary mechanism where I scratch my head every time I have 5 hearts, and I play with a lot of bridge with a lot of partners, and the ones who unconsciously always play me for 5 hearts when I scratch my head unconsciously, I score a tiny bit better with those partners so I will tend to those partners, and so on. But do you really think this is a plausible scenario?

If operant conditioning is going on on both sides of the screen, it might explain both how tells and Clever Hans-like effects emerge over thousands of boards. So I'm not suggesting that certain players, the von Ostens, need to hook up with certain players, the Clever Hanses, for von Osten-Clever Hans-like partnerships to develop.

[gwnn]

It might. It probably doesn't. Have you seen the videos? Do you consider it plausible that Fischer-Schwartz unconsciously developed the habit of putting the boards on their own side of the table when they have strong spades and they want their partners to play it? Honestly?

You keep saying things like "For all I know..." "It might" "There is no reason it couldn't" etc. But do you really, really consider all these conjectures likely? It is an interesting theory but don't you think it is far-fetched? At least a little bit?

[gwnn]

We are not talking about splitting the Oreo when you have the nuts but carefully taking the board and placing in specific parts under the screen, taking the board from your opponents' hands too to put it where you want, and sitting NS on purpose.

[nullve]

 gwnn, on 2015-October-22, 14:22, said:

Have you seen the videos?

Enough to know what people mean when they say that some of the behaviour looks unnatural.

Quote

Do you consider it plausible that Fischer-Schwartz unconsciously developed the habit of putting the boards on their own side of the table when they have strong spades and they want their partners to play it? Honestly?

I honestly don't know, although I don't see anything wrong with exercising a bit of Cartesian doubt here. For example, am I supposed to equate unnatural-looking behaviour with cheating? Here's Skinner's description of superstitous behavour in pidgeons:

"One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return." (https://en.wikipedia...i/B._F._Skinner)

Quote

You keep saying things like "For all I know..." "It might" "There is no reason it couldn't" etc. But do you really, really consider all these conjectures likely? It is an interesting theory but don't you think it is far-fetched? At least a little bit?

I'm just pointing to what appears to be a logical possibility here.