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Cheating in bridge


Cheating in bridge refers to a deliberate violation of the rules of the game of bridge or other unethical behaviour that is intended to give an unfair advantage to a player or team. Cheating can occur in many forms and can take place before, during, or after a board or game.

Commonly cited instances of cheating include: conveying information to a partner by means of a pre-arranged illegal signal, viewing the opponents' cards in a board prior to their arrival at the table, altering the records as to the results of a board; in certain games, it may include illicit shuffling to deal favourable cards to oneself or one's partner or marking cards so as to make their denomination and/or rank apparent to the perpetrator.

Unlike games such as chess which provide perfect information to the competitors, bridge is a game of imperfect information, and the exact contents of the partner's and the opponents' hand remain unknown until late in the play. Players are only entitled to act upon information conveyed by calls made and cards played, along with the visible contents of their own hand (and dummy's hand when exposed). Unauthorized information (UI) (Law 16) is any information that a player obtains by means of:

Law 16 of the Laws of Duplicate Bridge states that Players are authorized to base their calls and plays on information from legal calls and plays and from mannerisms of opponents. To base a call or play on other extraneous information may be an infraction of law.

Highest bridge ethics, expected from the top players, require that the players take extra steps neither to convey nor to act on any unauthorized information. However, as the stakes in terms of prize money, sponsor money and ranking are often high, throughout the history of the game there have been a number of players who have used illegal methods in order to gain an advantage over their opponents.

Law 73 states:

The gravest possible offence is for a partnership to exchange information through pre-arranged methods of communication other than those sanctioned in these laws.

and any deliberate act or behavior which conveys or obtains information other than by those means prescribed by the rules of the game constitutes cheating and is subject to sanctions by the governing bodies.

Apart from unlawful exchange of information, other forms of cheating include: viewing the opponents' cards in a board prior to their arrival at the table, altering the records as to the results of a board; in certain games, it may include illicit shuffling to deal favourable cards to oneself or one's partner, marking cards so as to make their denomination and or rank apparent only to the perpetrator, etc.


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