Bridge | 15 February 2018

August 2015 will be remembered as a landmark for World Bridge. There had long been talk among bridge players about certain pairs ethics, and enough evidence was found by experts sifting through filmed vu-graph documentation to accuse four World Champion pairs of cheating, Italians Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes among them. The American Bridge League banned them for life while its European counterpart (EBL) suspended them for three years for ‘collusive cheating’. The pair appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), a board with no bridge players on it, which, while not exonerating them, upheld the appeal. The EBL and ACBL stood by their decisions, but the following week Mr Fantoni showed up at the prestigious Barcelona Congress, playing with Miguel Trapé, president of the Catalan BF (not a member of the EBL) and organiser of the tournament. Check it out on the Bridge Winners website.On to pleasanter pastures.