[jkdood]

I recently had a conversation with a newbie that played mostly online, and learned that they used a piece of paper to keep track of the trump suit (or other suits) sometimes.

They consider it a learning tool, but I guess also as a crutch, as they "missed it" when playing F2F.

It has always struck me as somewhat untidy that F2F playing rules officially do not allow you to glance at your notes or ccard, although it is somewhat a gray area what you can "get away with" with a non-obvious glance or 2 in real life.

And of course you cannot take or use notes.

I gently suggested that this online "crutch" might be unethical or illegal, as are crutches in general. They responded that you can look at your CCard online at any time, or even have the system tell you what a bid means, so "what's the problem"?

Does anyone have an opinion or FYI as to what's the official or even unofficial position on online crutches. Obviously when BBO tells you what a system bid means, the "use of CC or other notes" is not really being disallowed, in at least some cases. Or is it?

[gnasher]

It's against the Laws of Bridge to read your own convention card, keep a record of what was played, use a pen and paper to calculate odds, etc. That applies as much to online bridge as to offline.

In 2001 the WBF published a version of the Laws adapted for online play:

http://www.worldbrid.../OnlineLaws.pdf

So far as I know, it wasn't updated when the Laws were changed in 2007, so I'm not sure which takes precedence. However, both versions forbid any such use of artificial aids.

Edit: the Laws also allow the tournament organiser (eg BBO) to override this, so BBO could say that you're allowed to look at your own card. I don't know if they do.

jkdood, on Aug 28 2010, 07:34 PM, said:

It has always struck me as somewhat untidy that F2F playing rules officially do not allow you to glance at your notes or ccard, although it is somewhat a gray area what you can "get away with" with a non-obvious glance or 2 in real life.

It's not a gray area in my world. If you accidentally see something on your own convention card, it's unauthorised information. If you do it deliberately, it's cheating.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2010-August-28, 13:12