Talk:Terence Reese

Spelling of Boris Schapiro's last name

On google I get lots of hits both with Shapiro and Schapiro. Don't know which is right. Zargulon 17:22, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

This guy's name definitely includes the letter "c". Paul 06:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Moved from the article

(P.S. The Truscott view of the cheating accusation is much more plausible, and in fact what the world outside the UK actually believes. The ridiculous Foster Enquiry, commissioned by the British Bridge League, was a bizarre and incompetent whitewash.)

Probably so, and that's in line what I read about the incident (ages ago), but the above sentence is really taken out of context; no one knows what is "Truscott view" nor "Foster Enquiry". Duja 16:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

And the above P.S. illustrates perfectly why personal opinions of contributors are not proper material for WP articles. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:43, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

All-rounder?

Should Terence Reese feature on List of all-rounders in games of skill? (See discussion on Talk:List of all-rounders in games of skill.) -- JocK 18:56, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Football

I read in Reese's obituary that he was a keen football fan (he was at a leading soccer school). but I've forgotten which team he followed. Was it Tottenham Hotspur? Millbanks 21:14, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Better coverage of Truscott's case?

Neither was Alan Truscott or his wife a fool. The writers have great admiration for Reese's books (as does most everyone) and possibly for that reason, short shrift is given to the accusations. It is upseting to think that the world's most celebrated and admired player cheated, but all of us know how tenacious and competitive top players are, and it's certainly possible. Reading this article, it's a bit like there's this huge elephant in the room and after being shown around all the trophy cases on the wall, our host offhandedly waves his hand and says, 'oh yes and then there's Horton,' and leads us out. NaySay (talk) 15:27, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

There probably ought to be a separate article on the affair going into it in more detail, given its significance. I've read both Reese's and Truscott's books on the affair. Reading Reese's, I thought he had demonstrated their innocence, and reading Truscott's I thought he had shown their guilt, so now I don't know what to think. The oddest thing is that Reeese didn't even want to plsy with Schspiro but would have prefered to play with Flint. JH (talk page) 10:20, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm old enough to know that no resolution of such a dispute is possible, which is why individual people hold such unreasonably strong views about it. A key skill in WP is to leave well alone! The original text on the subject was completely biased, the present text is balanced. If anyone wants to set up a separate article on the dispute, they can certainly go ahead and do it. It would need to go over the hands themselves, and it would need to reflect the present skepticism about witness evidence in crimes generally. This skepticism is based on experience of controlled psychology experiments on witness evidence of identification and events in crime scenes. The relevance is that people do tend to see what they expect to see, and make far more mistakes than was ever thought possible. British law has consequently degraded witness observational evidence (now no man may be convicted of a criminal offence solely on unsupported witness identification), and I assume the same is true of US law. Furthermore, WP is an encyclopedia, and encyclopedias need to give weight to established facts above all else. Disputes, gossip &c. need to be kept under strict control. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Rather curious. I read both books - and had the impression that Reese's was so much hot air and failed to rebut a single word of Truscott's accusations. It may well explain why the British inquiry found him not guilty, but why the rest of the world never accepted him back. TaigaBridge (talk) 01:48, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Post-mortem confession?

About five years ago, after Schapiro's death, someone came forward with what was allegedly a confession that Reese and Schapiro were signalling, but taking care not to take advantage of the signals, as material for a book Reese was writing on how easy it was to cheat and not be detected (which he then didn't write, after getting caught.) Or something like that.

Has this theory been completely discredited? Or were the article authors not aware of it? (Or are they Reese apologists who prefer to suppress it?) A short discussion of the theory: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/20/crosswords/bridge/20card.html TaigaBridge (talk) 01:58, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Whether or not the claim was true, it's certainly notable and ought to be mentioned in the article. JH (talk page) 09:08, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The article itself in the NYT is sheer nonsense. It assumes the truth of R-T's claims. There is only one photograph of the bidding by R & S (against Becker and Dorothey Hayden), and it contains no useful information. Rex-Taylor took no verifiable notes (that is to say, notes that had been signed by an independent person at the time). It portrays Reese as a silly man, behaving with reckless dishonesty for little or no gain. No-one who knew Reese (and many have written about him) would recognise him from this description.

Something must be said, but in a reserved manner. At the time, Reese was unable to defend himself (the WBF took their decision without any defence being permitted). Now, again, he cannot defend himself. Anyway, this link to the Independent article would be preferable to the NYT. After all, the NYT was Truscott's paper.

I have put in a short section, with this link:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-buenos-aires-affair-card-tricksters-490277.html

Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:08, 5 October 2009 (UTC)