Bobby Wolff on the Blue Team
pumpk...@hotmail.com
she has levied against the Blue Team, Bobby Wolff has come to her
defence by posting on her bridgeblog a number of hands to buttress her
charges.
Having been a long-time admirer of Canada's most illustrious pair,
Eric Murray and Sami Kehela, I was intrigued by Wolff's description of
events relating to the following hand:
"During the 1972 Olympiad and while playing the Round Robin, I had the
session off and went into the Vugraph to kibitz and fortunately heard
Eric Murray, who also was sitting off while playing for Canada, and
commentating from the podium. Finally the last hand arrived with
Italy’s Belladonna and Avarelli playing against Germany. The around-
the horn-players and their hands:
West (Avarelli) North (German) East (Belladonna) South
(German)
s. void s. xx s.
AKJx s. Qxxxxxx
h. AQ10xxxx h. J9x h.
K8 h. x
d.10xxx d. AKQJ8x d.
9xx d. void
c. xx c. Jx c.
AKQx c. 10xxxx
North dealer, Both sides Vulnerable
The Bidding in the Open Room
North East
South West
3 Diamonds Double
Pass Pass
Pass
Belladonna cashed the AK of clubs then the AK of Spades and then led
the King of hearts and another and after cashing the high heart
Avarelli led another heart promoting a trump trick to hold declarer to
only 5 tricks and collect +1100.
In the closed room the Italian North also opened 3 diamonds but over
East’s double West bid a normal 4 hearts and when the defense started
out by leading 4 rounds of diamonds declarer ruffed with the King and
later had to lose the setting trump trick to North. +100 to the
Italian NS.
As the vugraph room was filing out, I ran into Eric Murray and we both
headed to the elevators (both with wry grins on our faces). Lo and
behold when we got to the elevators, Benito Garozzo was just getting
off, having not played that set of boards (and there was no BBO back
then that you could watch in your room). Eric seized his chance and
approached Benito, saying “I’ve got a bidding hand for you. May I ask
what you would do?” He replied “Sure!” Whereupon Eric gave Benito,
Avarelli’s West hand with the seven hearts to the AQ10 in it and
related the earlier action. “What do you bid over the double?”
Benito smiled, shrugged and said ”4 Hearts.” “What is your 2d
choice?” ”I don’t have a 2d choice.” “What if someone made you have
one?” ”5 Hearts, I guess.” “What is your 3d choice?” “6 hearts, but
that is ridiculous.” “What is this all about”? “Your teammate Walter
passed”. “Walter passed Giorgio’s double?” “Yes.”
“What was the result?” inquired Benito. “+1100.” Benito then quickly
replied. “You know — after thinking about it, he is probably right. ”
AND INDEED HE WAS!!"
Wolff has posted a description of two other hands on his wife's blog
(she is one of the contributors to www.bridgeblogging.com) and has
promised to provide more material.
Nick
Henk Uijterwaal
> Seeing his spouse attacked for the undocumented cheating accusations
> she has levied against the Blue Team, Bobby Wolff has come to her
> defence by posting on her bridgeblog a number of hands to buttress her
> charges.
OK, let's analyze them:
(1)
West:
--
AQ10xxxx
10xxx
xx
> North dealer, Both sides Vulnerable
>
> The Bidding in the Open Room
-- 3 D Dbl Pass
??
Avarelli passed, which was a great result considering that 3Dx went
for 1100 and 4H for his side would have been down one.
I agree that pass is a bit of an odd choice, though one should keep
in mind that the Italians used "optional doubles". These tend to
show a lot more defense and a lot less offense then one would expect
from a double today. Given that, I think there is a bridge argument
in favor of passing.
(2) On the 3rd hand, the auction starts 1H by Jacoby, X, XX and
and Garozzo passed holding QT10xxx of hearts. After a pass by Jacoby,
Belladonna passed as well with a doubleton hearts. That was a good
result.
1 H could be on a bad 4 card suit, in the US style, the XX denied a heart
fit, in the Italian style one bids a suit over 1H-X-XX if you have one.
If you add this all up, it is not unlikely that the heart suit is
distributed 5-4-2-2 or 6-4-2-1 around the table.
(3) A player leads (by agreement) the Q from KQ as he would from KQx(...),
KQ10(...), KQ10x(..) . When it holds, he continues with the K, his
partner overtakes from Axx and that is the way to set the contract.
At the table, there was a BIT before the second round of spades. Now,
in 2009, we may agree that the BIT suggested that one should overtake
and adjust the score. But 40 years ago? The concept of a BIT and
LA simply did not exist, and players got away with things that they
would not get away with today.
Bottom line: yes, the Italian team (and probably lots of other
players from other nations as well) in the 1960's would not be
acceptable for today's top players. That doesn't make them cheats.
Henk
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henk Uijterwaal Email: henk.uijterwaal(at)ripe.net
RIPE Network Coordination Centre http://www.xs4all.nl/~henku
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Belgium: an unsolvable problem, discussed in endless meetings, with no
hope for a solution, where everybody still lives happily.
Bertel Lund Hansen
> Bottom line: yes, the Italian team (and probably lots of other
> players from other nations as well) in the 1960's would not be
> acceptable for today's top players. That doesn't make them cheats.
It doesn't bother you that a teammate strongly denied that
anything but 4H was unthinkable - and hard pressed suggested
other hearts bids?
--
Bertel, Denmark
http://bridge.lundhansen.dk/
Joachim Parsch
> Henk Uijterwaal skrev:
>
>> Bottom line: yes, the Italian team (and probably lots of other
>> players from other nations as well) in the 1960's would not be
>> acceptable for today's top players. That doesn't make them cheats.
>
> It doesn't bother you that a teammate strongly denied that
> anything but 4H was unthinkable - and hard pressed suggested
> other hearts bids?
Well, that's Wolff's version of the story. It may be true,
there may be facts missing (perhaps Garozzo wasn't so 100% sure
about bidding 4H?), it may even be completely made up, maybe
Wolff didn't even meet Garozzo immediately after that hand.
As long as we have not heard Garozzo's version of the story,
this is just worthless. Yes, that is a rather low level of
credibility I assign to Wolff, but that's because my
experience with his views.
Joachim
Vox
He did not know which hand they were talking at first. Read carefully.
Also:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&dat=19680302&id=dMoVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wBAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4495,345348
Also regarding Roth here (amazing guy):
http://www.rpbridge.net/7w40.htm
Also watch the takeout double, Avarelli on problem 1, and the
brilliant 6C below:
http://www.rpbridge.net/7y72.htm
These guys are the one I admire the most. On the other hand I believe
everyone has the right to detest someone but to slander someone just
because you are not used to be on the losing side or because you have
lost in an argument or at the game is disgusting .
B.R.
David Babcock
> it may even be completely made up
Not a stretch, unfortunately for the credibility of those who seek to
persuade us. Remember that we are asked by the same people to believe
that tapes that would have been clearly incriminating at the time were
in the custody of the WBF long enough to be examined by the CIA but
somehow were never copied or transcribed, with no one asking whether
the CIA had retained a copy and with the CIA "official" report clear
enough to be cited but also non-existent, with the tapes then being
"confiscated" by (unnamed) Italians out from under the WBF's nose.
The best evidence in favor of the accusations, absent the tapes or any
other hard evidence, must be the hands themselves, but it always seems
to come down to what somebody supposedly *said* -- for example Pabis-
Ticci's supposed justification of his ace cash followed by a ruff. As
for the hand itself, if the cards had lain differently and Pabis-Ticci
had led a trump to defeat the contract, would we be hearing about the
suspiciously risky trump lead from Jxx when he could have cashed a
side-suit ace for a look at dummy? Color me cynical, but somehow I
suspect we would.
And all the hooraw about the Italians using the "Franco boards" before
such devices became widely used -- that suggests something the
authorities suspected or knew about, the argument/innuendo goes -- but
we hear nothing about the use of screens at the 1974 Vanderbilt. Who
was suspected when *those* screens were used? The top US players at
the time? Oh dear.
If cheating were competently done, it would be done often enough to
matter but not often enough to leave a meaningful pattern of strange
results, and so disproving the accusations is impossible. And so we
are where we are.
David
boblipton
Was in Henry Francis who was trying to report on some scandal, was
told that it was a terrible scandal and replied that it was the first
time that Bridge was front-page news since Culbertson? Francis was
right and so was the official: a front page scandal creates interest
and is good for the game, but it is bad for the people with their
fingers caught in the cookie jar or in charge of guarding the
cookies.... even though the last often claim their interests and
bridge are the same. After all, nothing is more important for bridge
than that they get that paycheck.
I happened to be rereading the collection of Frank Vining pieces,
NORTH OF THE MASTER SOLVER'S CLUB and when I went through 'The Curse
of the Blue Team' I considered it in the context of this current
discussion ranging through two or three threads and it looked very
suspicious. Yes, as some one noted, everyone makes mistakes and some
times they turn out well, but it is the insistence on an almost papal
infallibility that puts me off. If I bobble, try to recover and
succeed, I apologize to partner for making the mistake in the first
place -- like the time I opened 2NT, subsequently discovered my hand
was not 3=4=3=3 but 6=4=3=0 and wound up in the slam..... a perfectly
normal result after having gone 'round Robin Hood's Barn.
We all make these mistakes, but given the fact that suspicions tend to
accumulate around highly-skilled players who make seemingly anti-
percentage decisions that work out, the question to me is why,
assuming that these people are cheating, don't they work out better
stories. "Well, I had a couple of spades stuck in withmy clubs, so
when I led the ace and a low one I thought I was leading from my
longest suit where partner had a chance of a ruff" or a simple
"Well, something about their tempo. Table presence, I suppose."
Now, in considering these issues, we are confronted with several
issues which force us to draw conclusions about peoples' reporting.
For example, I met and played aginst Norman Kay and Johnny Crawford
and I have definite ideas as to their characters. If Norman Kay
thought the Italians were cheating and warned the current Mrs. Wolff,
but did not wish to go public with his suspicions, then he would not
have wished his PRIVATE warnings to be made PUBLIC later. Had he
wished to involve anyone in the fuss and bother of public accusations,
he would have made those accusations himself. He did not, and
therefore for anyone to quote his private beliefs/suspicions in
support of anything is wrong.
However, Johnny Crawford made his beliefs public, and he was just as
much of a gentleman as Mr. Kay (with one clear codicil: while Mr. Kay
was a gentleman, Mr. Crawford may have simply wanted to be a
gentleman, knew the rules to being one and was able to apply them.
This allowed Mr. Kay more creativity, since whatever a gentleman does
is gentlemanly). Mr. Crawford would not make a public accusation
until he was morally convinced and losing does not consttitute prima
facie evidence unless you are a paranoiac.
It is also my impression of Mr. Wolff that he is a very talented
player, but he has a streak of madness. He believes that no one can
beat him without cheating and that every time there is a rub of the
green and he loses, that is damning evidence of cheating.
Finally, I think that John Blubaugh is understandably bitter, wont to
interpret any information concerning Wolff in the worst light
possible, more likely to remember things to adumbrate to Wolff's
discredit and therefore take several grains of salt with any of his
statements.
What has this got to do with the issues of cheating? I do not
believe that there is no smoke without fire. But the combination of
odd plays and strange excuses leads me to believe that something is
going on. Perhaps, as some people have suggested, the Italians have
made poor choices under pressure that worked out. Perhaps we need to
examine every hand played by the players whose play have raised
suspicion and see if they have done similar things that did not work
out . Perhaps they should simply have acknowledged mistakes. But as
things stand, peole are suspicious and damned right to be so.
Bob
jblubaugh
> interpret any information concerning Wolff in the worst light
> possible, more likely to remember things to adumbrate to Wolff's
> discredit and therefore take several grains of salt with any of his
> statements.
>
This may shock you Bob but I agree with you. It is one of the reasons
that I always openly state my personal feelings about Wolff. What I
have said is true but I would fail to see anything good about the man
and I would tend to discard it if I thought it existed. I try to make
sure that everything I say about Wolff is true and verifiable. But, I
am sure he has many good deeds that I won't even consider. He is my
personal personification of evil and that has to color anything I say
about the man. My feelings about Edgar Kaplan are all positive and I
am sure that colors my perception of him too.
I think what you say is true with just about everyone. Their minds are
already made up about a person and they tend to believe the worst
about people that dispise and the best about people they admire. This
was a wise observation on your part.
JB
Larry
[snip]
>
> (3) A player leads (by agreement) the Q from KQ as he would from KQx(...),
> KQ10(...), KQ10x(..) . When it holds, he continues with the K, his
> partner overtakes from Axx and that is the way to set the contract.
>
> Henk
Hmmm, I thought everyone knew to show a doubleton with this holding
(playing JOURNALIST / RUSINOW) you lead the King first!
Larry
Nick France
wrote:
> promised to provide more material.
>
> Nick
Hard to believe that the conversation happenned as told but it doesn't
matter. We all know that one hand proves nothing. Here the problem,
of course, is the Italian style of doubles. In any case we need
someone to look at all the hands of a match to see what happen and how
many unusual results there were.
While I haven't done it I checked on the Vugraph project
(www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugragh) to see which years they have up.
They have the following years where the Italians were represented by
the main players that could be called the Blue Team
1957, 1959, 1962, 1967, 1973, 1974, 1975
What might prove interesting is to go over this hand by hand to see
why The Italians seems to keep winning. The 1967 should prove
interesting as it is a very strong american team (at least in my
mind). 1973 should also prove interesting as it has Wolff
representing the americans and they didn't come close.
Nick France
boblipton
It doesn't shock me in the least, John.
Bob
Henk Uijterwaal
> On Oct 4, 8:47 am, David Babcock <d...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>> On Oct 4, 7:22 am, Joachim Parsch <a...@bunuel.franken.de> wrote:
>> And all the hooraw about the Italians using the "Franco boards" before
>> such devices became widely used -- that suggests something the
>> authorities suspected or knew about, the argument/innuendo goes -- but
>> we hear nothing about the use of screens at the 1974 Vanderbilt. Who
>> was suspected when *those* screens were used? The top US players at
>> the time? Oh dear.
Yes, and what about the Swedish top players back in 1962, when bidding
boxes were invented?
> It is also my impression of Mr. Wolff that he is a very talented
> player, but he has a streak of madness. He believes that no one can
> beat him without cheating and that every time there is a rub of the
> green and he loses, that is damning evidence of cheating.
I think he has this in common with John Swanson, who pretty much
says the same in his book.
In case of Wolff, it is more complex. Not only does he believe that
if somebody beats him at bridge, that person must be cheating, he also
seems to think that whatever side of an argument he supports, that is
right. Read, for example, his version of the events at the 1990
world championships.
boblipton
Henk Uijterwaal wrote:
> boblipton wrote:
> > On Oct 4, 8:47 am, David Babcock <d...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> >> On Oct 4, 7:22 am, Joachim Parsch <a...@bunuel.franken.de> wrote:
>
> >> And all the hooraw about the Italians using the "Franco boards" before
> >> such devices became widely used -- that suggests something the
> >> authorities suspected or knew about, the argument/innuendo goes -- but
> >> we hear nothing about the use of screens at the 1974 Vanderbilt. Who
> >> was suspected when *those* screens were used? The top US players at
> >> the time? Oh dear.
>
> Yes, and what about the Swedish top players back in 1962, when bidding
> boxes were invented?
>
> > It is also my impression of Mr. Wolff that he is a very talented
> > player, but he has a streak of madness. He believes that no one can
> > beat him without cheating and that every time there is a rub of the
> > green and he loses, that is damning evidence of cheating.
>
> I think he has this in common with John Swanson, who pretty much
> says the same in his book.
>
> In case of Wolff, it is more complex. Not only does he believe that
> if somebody beats him at bridge, that person must be cheating, he also
> seems to think that whatever side of an argument he supports, that is
> right. Read, for example, his version of the events at the 1990
> world championships.
>
> Henk
Well, Henk, whatever side of an argument I support is right too.
Otherwise I don't support it. Isn't it pretty much the same with
you?
Bob
Vox
Some jokes I have found over the internet .
1.
In a recent public survey, it was found that …
In Italy, all Bridge Players are important.
In the US, only the successful Bridge Players are important.
In China, all Bridge Players are equally unimportant.
In Singapore, the survey was cancelled because nobody knew what a
Bridge Player was.
2.
The devil appeared before a Bridge player and made him an offer. "I
can arrange some things for you,” the devil said. "I'll make sure you
win every tournament you enter. Your partners will love and worship
you. Your opponents will fear and respect you and you will live to be
a hundred. All I want in return is your wife's soul which will burn in
hell for eternity.
The Bridge player thought for a moment. "Ok, I give up …What's the
catch?"
3.
Bridge has proved that you can sit for hours in front of somebody
without once making eye contact.
4.
Mixed Emotions: Winning a Tournament with your Partner.
B.R.
David Stevenson
>Henk Uijterwaal skrev:
>
>> Bottom line: yes, the Italian team (and probably lots of other
>> players from other nations as well) in the 1960's would not be
>> acceptable for today's top players. That doesn't make them cheats.
>
>It doesn't bother you that a teammate strongly denied that
>anything but 4H was unthinkable - and hard pressed suggested
>other hearts bids?
Most of my team-mates think my bidding is unthinkable. That does not
make me a cheat.
--
David Stevenson Bridge RTFLB Cats Railways
Liverpool, England, UK Fax: +44 870 055 7697 ICQ: 20039682
<webj...@googlemail.com> bluejak on OKB
Bridgepage: http://blakjak.org/brg_menu.htm
Douglas Newlands
> Henk Uijterwaal skrev:
>
>> Bottom line: yes, the Italian team (and probably lots of other
>> players from other nations as well) in the 1960's would not be
>> acceptable for today's top players. That doesn't make them cheats.
>
> It doesn't bother you that a teammate strongly denied that
> anything but 4H was unthinkable - and hard pressed suggested
> other hearts bids?
Yes but...
I believe the Italians (just the Romans??) used double on all 2 suited
hands as well as 3 suited ones. So the hands that michaels, UNT, leaping
Michaels etc are used for nowadays were a double in those days.
In its earliest forms, the roman club used an exclusion response (a suit
they could not play in - not a preemptive leap in the modern
terminology) so that a 2 suited doubler could know which suit to bid,
possibly for this very reason.
Since Belladonna could be 5-5 in the other 2 suits, on the hand in
question, it is plausible that Avarelli just assumed from his heart
length that B had the other 2 suits and just tried to make sure of a
plus score by passing.
Doug,
Tasmania
PriorKnowledge
wrote:
And we also don't know the state of the match and how much a swing
Avarelli thot he needed, how tired everybody was, how well he had been
playing declarer the last few hands, how frequent the opps open 3D on
garbage, how disgusted Avarelli was that opps were getting away with
preempt murder, etc. Finally, the anecdote about what Garrazo said is
2nd hand from 30+ years ago.
Trying to determine cheating by cherry picking a few hands from a long
event seems dubious at best. The only way to truly catch a cheat is to
stand behind one of them and see if you can pick off the signals and
correctly determine a hidden hand. Otherwise, we are just dragging
people's name thru the mud with "conspiracy theories."
This whole thing is conjecture. To wait 30+ years and then accuse
someone of cheating is dastardly and cowardly.
jblubaugh
>
> - Show quoted text -
You know I am often accused of making comments about Wolff that are,
well, less than flattering. But, I'll tell you what is dastardly and
cowardly is to make comments like your anonymously. Sign in and let
Wolff know who you are. He has always known who I am and what I think
of him. If you aren't willing to take the heat then you shouldn't be
making the comments. This is just my opinion which I value highly!!
JB
Adam Beneschan
> And we also don't know the state of the match and how much a swing
> Avarelli thot he needed, how tired everybody was, how well he had been
> playing declarer the last few hands, how frequent the opps open 3D on
> garbage, how disgusted Avarelli was that opps were getting away with
> preempt murder, etc. Finally, the anecdote about what Garrazo said is
> 2nd hand from 30+ years ago.
Tend to agree... Avarelli's pass looks like a very swingy action but
it's one that *might* work; he probably envisioned getting multiple
spade ruffs. Also, although I don't really know their methods, Henk
said they were playing "optional" doubles and my understanding of
"optional" doubles is that they tend to be on balanced hands, so
Avarelli could have envisioned diamond ruffs against a heart game. So
I don't see passing the double as unthinkable---unusual, maybe, but
not unthinkable. It doesn't bother me that Garozzo said it was. The
description in the original post made it look like he didn't give a
lot of thought to his answer (and why should he, since he wasn't
playing the hand).
-- Adam
Bertel Lund Hansen
> And we also don't know the state of the match and how much a swing
> Avarelli thot he needed, how tired everybody was, how well he had been
> playing declarer the last few hands, how frequent the opps open 3D on
> garbage, how disgusted Avarelli was that opps were getting away with
> preempt murder, etc. Finally, the anecdote about what Garrazo said is
> 2nd hand from 30+ years ago.
> Trying to determine cheating by cherry picking a few hands from a long
> event seems dubious at best.
I get your point.
David Babcock
> The
> description in the original post made it look like he didn't give a
> lot of thought to his answer (and why should he, since he wasn't
> playing the hand).
We also don't know who asked the question. Garozzo might take some
questioners more seriously than others -- as might Pabis-Ticci.
David
Ron Johnson
> On Oct 6, 9:53 pm, Adam Beneschan <a...@irvine.com> wrote:
>
> > The
> > description in the original post made it look like he didn't give a
> > lot of thought to his answer (and why should he, since he wasn't
> > playing the hand).
>
> We also don't know who asked the question.
We do. Eric Murray.
> Garozzo might take some
> questioners more seriously than others -- as might Pabis-Ticci.
Garozzo would be expecting some kind of trick question
from Murray and I suspect would either give it a lot
of thought or very little.
Ron Johnson
> in mind that the Italians used "optional doubles".
Optional isn't quite accurate. More like "old fashioned takeout"
They weren't terribly concerned about shape.
I wonder if their own canape style influenced this.
You're more likely to need an off-shape takeout double
against somebody who may not have introduced their
best suit first.
Yeah -- I know, this is over a preempt. They were still
more likely to be off-shape (as we see from the hand in
question)
Even so, the pass is remarkable. Particularly
since Avarelli's job was to be the straight man
to Belladonna's one man army.
Ron Johnson
>
> While I haven't done it I checked on the Vugraph project
> (www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugragh) to see which years they have up.
> They have the following years where the Italians were represented by
> the main players that could be called the Blue Team
>
> 1957, 1959, 1962, 1967, 1973, 1974, 1975
>
> What might prove interesting is to go over this hand by hand to see
> why The Italians seems to keep winning. The 1967 should prove
> interesting as it is a very strong american team (at least in my
> mind). 1973 should also prove interesting as it has Wolff
> representing the americans and they didn't come close.
You could also look at the charge sheets as a double-check,
assuming you can get a copy of old Bridge Worlds.
I've only seen the summary, but I'm told that the most detailed
charge sheets were in 1959.
Ron Johnson
> matter. We all know that one hand proves nothing. Here the problem,
> of course, is the Italian style of doubles. In any case we need
> someone to look at all the hands of a match to see what happen and how
> many unusual results there were.
According to Jeff Rubens in the mid-60s the Italian style
of takeout doubles was costing them points.
He didn't back it up with specifics and Sonny Moyse
(also fond of off-shape doubles) scoffed at his
assertion, but it is worth noting that the Italians
moved closer to the mainstream over time.
One particularly telling moment was Hamman's successful
babypsyche. They had to alter their responses (having
no way to double him for penalty or even to show spades)