Cheating In Mellow Pastttttttimes

[Spade_Cooley 9,549]

This is probably my all-time favourite trope: when proper full-scale cheating occurs in a field that most people take see as a sedate hobby. Inspired by the news that 2019/20 Fantasy Premier League champion Aleksandar Antonov has been stripped of his title for unknown reasons. I wanted to use this thread to collate other instances and see if you knew of any others.

 

In 2017, former British Scrabble champion (and Scrabble columnist for The Times) Allan Simmons was banned from competitive play for three years after he was caught looking in the bag before drawing tiles.

 

In 2008, Kristina Contes had her membership of the Scrapbooking Hall of Fame revoked when she was found to have taken false credit for photos she included in her scrapbooks. The story of this and the war between two different schools of scrapbooking thought (the traditional white picket fence mom crowd and the upstart Myspace-influenced scene kids of the early 2000s) really should be made into a movie.

 

And, of course, there was the bad blood, corruption and accusations of widespread cheating that marred the 1990 Subbuteo World Cup:

 

 

Anyone got anything else? 

[Toast 16,156]

Sorry to be the first to ask, but could we have the superfluous 't' removed from 'Pastimes' in the title? 

(I always think 'pastime' should have a double s, but it doesn't, so there we are.)

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,689]

9 hours ago, Toast said:

Sorry to be the first to ask, but could we have the superfluous 't' removed from 'Pastimes' in the title? 

(I always think 'pastime' should have a double s, but it doesn't, so there we are.)

 

I hate to point this out Toasty, but this is the hobby-cheating thread and not the pedant thread. Or even the Lynne Truss thread - imagine the fun that one would bring. 

 

Damn, now I feel I should say something about mellow pastimes and their misdemeanours. I know, I'll come back and secretly edit when I do. Ah, but what if someone quotes me before then? I'll just claim they falsely added this part of the post out of spite and envy.

 

Edit: actually, I'm going to fess up - when using 'second chance' in FB Quiz Planet, I have been known to google the correct answer on another device during the advert. 

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,689]

"In 2019, the WBF suspended Geir Helgemo after he failed a drug test. Helgemo, who is from Norway but plays for Monaco, had been ranked number one in the world in bridge.  Helgemo underwent drug testing at a World Bridge Series event that subsequently revealed an 'adverse analytical finding." In this case, Helgemo had tested positive for two substances that are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA): synthetic testosterone and clomiphene."

[Totally Wired 3]

Back when you could still drink bear at a snooker table during the 'professional' games - there was a myriad of players who would use beta blockers to give them a steady hand. Poor Neal Foulds ended up being the can-carrier for the end of that, but he certainly wasn't the only one to do it. 

[Great Uncle Bulgaria 1,294]

9 hours ago, Totally Wired said:

Back when you could still drink bear at a snooker table during the 'professional' games - there was a myriad of players who would use beta blockers to give them a steady hand. Poor Neal Foulds ended up being the can-carrier for the end of that, but he certainly wasn't the only one to do it. 

 

Do you mean Hofmeister?

[Spade_Cooley 9,549]

Maybe a little too dramatic and energy packed for the thread's title, but I think we can just about sneak Todd Rogers' 30-year history of adding his own made-up high scores to the official Twin Galaxies arcade game high score tables here. Somehow nobody spotted he was cheating for three decades, despite - to pick a random example - his high score for Fathom on the Atari 2600 being 1,110,500, whereas the guy in second place's high score was... 142. 

[Toast 16,156]

20 hours ago, Toast said:

Sorry to be the first to ask, but could we have the superfluous 't' removed from 'Pastimes' in the title? 

(I always think 'pastime' should have a double s, but it doesn't, so there we are.)

 

 

That's better.  A piss-take is infinitely better than a misspelling. 

 

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,689]

2 hours ago, Spade_Cooley said:

Maybe a little too dramatic and energy packed for the thread's title, but I think we can just about sneak Todd Rogers' 30-year history of adding his own made-up high scores to the official Twin Galaxies arcade game high score tables here. Somehow nobody spotted he was cheating for three decades, despite - to pick a random example - his high score for Fathom on the Atari 2600 being 1,110,500, whereas the guy in second place's high score was... 142. 

Can you really count gaming though - isn't cheating the main point of playing? Young people today... 

 

Chess has quite a history of skulduggery (especially them dang cheatin' Russkies). Or is chess too sportsy? Anyway, there's a huge wiki page devoted to it, and probably many websites.

[Spade_Cooley 9,549]

7 minutes ago, harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy said:

Can you really count gaming though - isn't cheating the main point of playing? Young people today... 

That's why I was reticent about including it. I wouldn't include the King of Kong battle between Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell as that's clearly an actual sport, but the sheer chutzpah of Rogers' pulling numbers out of his arse and remaining unchallenged for the entire lifespan of Jose Antonio Reyes just about passes for me.

 

On the other hand, the feud between John Moschitta Jr and Steve Woodmore for the title of world's fastest talker fits here, especially with Woodmore seemingly outright cheating on numerous occasions when the two go head-to-head.

[CaptainChorizo 1,990]

nm missed a few posts above

Edited August 12, 2020 by CaptainChorizo

[CaptainChorizo 1,990]

2 hours ago, Spade_Cooley said:

Maybe a little too dramatic and energy packed for the thread's title, but I think we can just about sneak Todd Rogers' 30-year history of adding his own made-up high scores to the official Twin Galaxies arcade game high score tables here. Somehow nobody spotted he was cheating for three decades, despite - to pick a random example - his high score for Fathom on the Atari 2600 being 1,110,500, whereas the guy in second place's high score was... 142. 

 

Billy Mitchell is even worse then this guy because he has been caught cheating and he still takes people to court

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/5/21247687/billy-mitchell-donkey-kong-twin-galaxies-world-record-sued-defamation-court

 

There is even a documentary which has his used car salesman sleaziness on display,it shows how he basically schmoozed the Incel looking guy who used to run Twin Galaxy so he could get dubiously verifiable records counted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Kong

[Spade_Cooley 9,549]

The world of competitive Magic: The Gathering was rocked last year when two-time player of the year and former world champion Yuuya Watanabe was caught marking his cards. I quote from MTG's ruling body:

 

Quote

his Urza’s Power Plants were marked in a specific way. Three Urza’s Mines and one Urza’s Tower had a different marking, and three Urza’s Towers and one Urza’s Mine also had a different marking. No other cards in the deck nor sideboard had any of these marks. The judge staff determined that the odds of this happening by accident were close to nonexistent

 

Disgusting, I'm sure you'll agree. Thankfully Watanabe has caught a 30-month ban and been removed from the HoF.

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,689]

I felt sure there'd been a scandal in the world of competitive staring, but I've been, ahem, looking for ages and I can't find any solid evidence on the net. 

 

The BBC showed extensive highlights of the 43rd World Championships a while back - some exciting contests but sadly it all seemed to be fairly clean. I have Sky Sports and BT Sport, so I'm not really a regular staring viewer like those with terrestrial channels only.

 

[gcreptile 10,979]

It does beg the question... has there been cheating in deadpooling?

[TQR 14,408]

1 minute ago, gcreptile said:

It does beg the question... has there been cheating in deadpooling?

What, like picking a name then killing them?

[gcreptile 10,979]

2 minutes ago, The Quim Reaper said:

What, like picking a name then killing them?

Hehe, yes, that's one way. It's like in Dirty Harry IV. Or maybe some prince in the 17th century helped his luck...

 

... but the cheating could also be something like changing your list after posting your team.

[Spade_Cooley 9,549]

6 minutes ago, gcreptile said:

It does beg the question... has there been cheating in deadpooling?

 

Isn't this the plot of at least two movies - The Dead Pool, the Dirty Harry movie that introduced the concept of deadpooling (and Guns N Roses) to a wider audience, and the utterly awful looking Killing Hasselhoff with The Hoff, Ken Jeong and pretty much every other actor who would turn up for an appearance fee

[gcreptile 10,979]

15 minutes ago, Spade_Cooley said:

 Killing Hasselhoff with The Hoff, Ken Jeong and pretty much every other actor who would turn up for an appearance fee

Oh my... had no idea about that one.

[time 8,628]

52 minutes ago, gcreptile said:

It does beg the question... has there been cheating in deadpooling?

Many/Most deadpools have rules against cheating, from which i infer that its been attempted.

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,689]

You'd think there'd be a sense of fair play in the gentlemanly world of serial killing, but for every shy and retiring Shipman there's a whole host of cheating showoffs claiming a falsely high total just to climb the charts. Of course, they're usually Americans - Bundy (claimed 100 at times, likely circa 35), Israel Keyes, Glen Rogers (70/5), HH Holmes (100/25),  Gary Ridgway (70/48), Larry Eyler, Donald Leroy Evans, Donald Trump, Richard Bigenwald, Pee Wee Gaskins, Paul John Knowles, and the king of the hill, Henry Lee Lucas (350+/under 20).

 

Boo! 

[msc 18,487]

16 minutes ago, time said:

Many/Most deadpools have rules against cheating, from which i infer that its been attempted.

 

Well, the time when people filled their squads with the US states "January executions to do list" was at least on the unsporting side.

[msc 18,487]

6 minutes ago, harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy said:

You'd think there'd be a sense of fair play in the gentlemanly world of serial killing, but for every shy and retiring Shipman there's a whole host of cheating showoffs claiming a falsely high total just to climb the charts. Of course, they're usually Americans - Bundy (claimed 100 at times, likely circa 35), Israel Keyes, Glen Rogers (70/5), HH Holmes (100/25),  Gary Ridgway (70/48), Larry Eyler, Donald Leroy Evans, Donald Trump, Richard Bigenwald, Pee Wee Gaskins, Paul John Knowles, and the king of the hill, Henry Lee Lucas (350+/under 20).

 

Boo! 

 

One of Christopher Brookmyre's early books got a slating from some critics as the villain, a village doctor who quietly murdered a dozen or so people, was unrealistic. This was a year or two before Shipman was unmasked.

[Handrejka 1,904]

7 hours ago, gcreptile said:

It does beg the question... has there been cheating in deadpooling?

 

I think someone managed to steal some of TMIB's uniques one year due to some sort of admin error or something were the details were released. Not sure if that counts as cheating but is unsporting.  

[DevonDeathTrip 2,358]

Birdwatching, particularly in the UK can be a nasty, cut-throat business, with regular allegations of cheating and skullduggery.  

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/31/twitching-british-birdwatching-wild-side