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BGonline.org Forums
Cheating in Europe
Posted By: Bob Glass In Response To: WSOB finals - some (odd) odds (Chiva Tafazzoli)
Date: Thursday, 11 February 2010, at 2:08 a.m.
I don't wish to generalize about any region of the the world and single it out for cheating or unsavory characters. We should all hug each other and sing Kumbaya. HOWEVER! I wish to relate my experience in Monte Carlo 20 years ago. I'm playing in my first tournament there and my first opponent is in Carterspeak Timone Saim. Before I get to the table, Steve Trumpet(also Carterspeak) said to me "Watch out for that guy!" Within seconds, I didn't like the way he shook his dice. It was a deadly combination. The tournament equipment consisted of a slick flat oval plastic cup with large precision dice. Anybody could easily slide out the roll of his choice if he chose to do so. Timone, didn't properly shake his dice. He employed what at that time I referred to as the European jiggle. Repeatedly, I would see players jiggle their cups slightly from side to side before rolling their dice It was possible that their EJ was doing nothing to rotate the dice. So now I'm playing a supposed nefarious character employing the EJ and I was getting quite nervous. I politely asked him to shake his dice. He ignored me. I asked him again and he started swearing at me. I complained to the tournament director who made Timone shake his dice. Not only did he shake his dice, but he repeatedly rattled them in front of my face. In addition, he was making death threats toward me all through the match even in front of the tournament director. As an aside, I remenber a panhandler walking around the tournament asking me and others for money. He was of the same ethnicity as Timone. In the supposed last game of the match, I have Timone closed out. As long as he comes in without hitting a man from the bar, I will have won the match. After i bore a few men off, he came in behind me virtually giving me the match. He takes the board and shoves it into my abdomen. I took that as a concession and shoved the board back into his abdomen. I proceeded to report the win. Next thing I knew, he ran up to the podium and screamed that the match was not over. He maintained that he was on the bar, I left a shot, and he hit the shot. He further embellished that I got so mad that I shoved the board at him. He and the director continued their frenetic discussion in French and seemed to ignore my protests. I then saw the panhandler enter the discussion and began to think I was observing some weird Fellini flick. The director then asked Timone what the position was and he set up the board with me on the bar. I was instructed by the director to resume play from that position. I told the director how ridiculous that was and he gave me a choice to play from that position or forfeit the match. I'm normally a pretty laid back guy but my only reaction was to unleash a tirade of expletives that would make Linda Blair in the Exorcist blush. When my heartrate finally settled down to below 300 beats per minute, I resumed play from that bogus position. Incidentally and not surprisingly, the panhandler corroborated everything Timone said and served as his expert witness. As we walked to the table, Timone demonstrated his flying karate kicks in front of my face as he continued his death threats. I lost that game but was fortunate to win the next game to win the match.
I talked to several people at the tournament about the guy and heard enough stories about him to write a book. Apparently, he was tight with Princess Stephanie of Monaco and was able to get away with almost anything. Several people told me they were stiffed by him. Several people told me they were cheated by him. Several people told me he had committed several acts of violence. All through the tournament, he continued to theaten to kill me as his feet were flying though the air two inches from my head. I've subsequently learned that he is banned from the United States for some incident dating back to his soccer playing days.
What irks me is that everytime i've gone back to Europe, I see him at various tournaments. I see all the Giants hobnobbing with him over their lattes as if he were a human being. Yeah, tell me about the stringent standards of European backgammon.
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