Failure to do so is being too soft on cheats IMHO

It is a lot worse than being soft on the cheats.

It leads to all kinds of second guessing and suspicion.

I am aware that there is speculation in some circles to the effect that the player holds a high position in NZ Bridge and that this has resulted in anonymity and a light punishment.

Personally I very much doubt that this is the case but this is one of the reasons behing the sentiment that justice must be seen to be done.

Well actually "everyone" knows who he is.  He is not a "name" player. 

To simplify this substantially...

The Conduct Committee have decided that since there was no explicit rule against this sort of cheating in an online setting, they cannot issue any sort of penalty.  This is patent nonesense of course as the actions are direct and obvious breaches of god knows how many bridge laws.  The board have now promulgated regs. making this behavour explicitly illegal.  The Online issue is, of course, a red herring as the fact that they have made a ruling at all implies that they believe they have jurisdiction. 

Of course this is all a smokescreen.  What has happenned is that they are scared of litigation.  Others in NZ have publically stated that they agree with the (non) action taken for this reason.  Believe it or not (go take a look at the kiwibridge facebook feed) a large number of morons are agreeing with this, arguing, as I say, that there were no published regulations.  What a total crock.  There are no published regulations against hacking the BBO software as a means of cheating either - do we need them?  There are no published regulations against me smacking this cheat in the head either -do we need them?  The implication is clear - any player is welcome to locate any loophole in the regulations in order to cheat. 

We can't let this stand. 

I wonder how Patrick, as an organiser of these events, feels about this (are you there Patrick?).  Recently the Conduct Committee was perfectly happy to publish my partner's name after she was found guilty of rudeness, but now, through what I can only assume is sheer cowardice, they cannot bring themselves to publish the name of a collusive cheat.  I don't know if he is wealthy, we certainly aren't, perhaps that's it.  

Anyway I know that many out there are as outraged as I.  Can we start some sort of petition to at least let these enablers know how we feel.  What else can we do...  For one we should start voting out of office every board member tainted by this revolting business. One board member has resigned in disgust - I don't know if he/she wants to be named - and all power to him/her.

what do others think? 

 Something just occured to me (I know, I'm slow). 

What would you do if you thought (as he claims) that it would be OK to play with youself given no masterpoints etc.  Easy - you sign in with two logins.  However our 'hero' went to the trouble of using TWO COMPUTERS, rather than just two windows, perhaps thinking that that would act as cover.  This is the equivalent of shredding documents. 

I don't know how he was caught, but he admits everything.  However he claims that he was just using this event to practice a new bidding system and it would be OK since there was no prizemoney or masterpoints at stake.

He has represented New Zealand in another sport, and perhaps that is why they are concerned about fallout.  If it were you or I there would be hell to play.

On facebook I tried to argue that breaching Law 73 means that you are no longer playing bridge.  Fundametal to the game is not knowing what your partner's hand is.  That is partly what bridge IS.  I argued that it is literally no exageration to compare what he did to taking a car on a marathon run - a marathon is about running, not just getting from A to B.