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)

I have to agree with NaySay and TaigaBridge. I find the section on the Buenos Aires affair disappointingly one-sided, bordering on apologetic. The devastating evidence presented by Alan Truscott - meticulous registering, by several witnesses, of the finger signals, which in a large majority of cases were found to correspond with the length of the heart suits in both players' hands - is not dealt with in any detail, while Jeremy Flint's "account", which does not go into the accusations themselves but instead only offers some circumstantial musings the way a solicitor might, gets its own sub-section.GdB (talk) 11:43, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

To which I would add that attempts to prove that R. and S. did not benefit from the finger signals (if that were even possible) are a diversionary tactic. Whether or not it brought them any gain is irrelevant. They were found exchanging finger signals, which according to the rules constitues cheating.GdB (talk) 11:57, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree. The current article is heavily slanted towards Reese's innocence. This section should be rewritten to capture consensus opinion. Erniecohen (talk) 18:13, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

1. The problem is that there isn't a consensus. Or if you prefer, there are two different consensuses: most in the US think that he was guilty; most in the UK think that he was innocent. (I'm not sure about the rest of the world.) I've read both Reese's and Truscott's books. They both make very strong - but of course opposite - cases, so personally I don't know what to believe. Of course if Reeese and Schapiro were exchanging finger signals then they were guilty of cheating, but eye-witness accounts of what happened at a crime scene are notoriously unreliable; witnesses tend to see what they want or expect to see. 2. I think the affair really needs its own article to cover it properly. It is certainly notable in its own right. It would also avoid stuff having to be duplicated here and in the biographies of the other main protagonists. JH (talk page) 19:54, 11 April 2015 (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)

The Story of an Accusation

ref#15 in full:

Terence Reese, The Story of an Accusation, Heinemann (London), 1996; also Simon and Schuster (New York), 1996, LCCCN 67-17872, 246 pages.

I suppose those are typos for 1966, 1967, LCCN. If a second edition then say so, as for The Great Bridge Scandal, 2004.

The companion page Terence Reese bibliography identifies four editions, two British and two American. We now briefly indicate the same four editions in our biography Boris Schapiro#Further reading --because I expanded that section this hour, while relocating it in the footer, and consulting the bibliography.

P.P.S. I suppose those are British English and American English (behaviour/behavior) "editions" of identical original material, and same for identical, revised or expanded "second edition" material. Someone who knows may be able to revise the bibliography and the Schapiro biography usefully. --P64 (talk) 00:44, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Does anyone know how the later editions differ? And by whose hand? Reese died in 1996. I guess new front or end material only. (Truscott, whose 2004 second edition this page cites in ref#16-#17, died late in 2005.)

P.S. The entire, relatively long section Boris Schapiro#Buenos Aires affair is unreferenced.

--P64 (talk) 00:38, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

A look on the UK and US Amazon websites might clarify the years in which editions of SoaA were published. It could be that there was a new edition in 1996, and the writer of the article referred to it because it was the edition that he himself owned. Page numbers could change from one edition to another, so if referring to a specific page one would have to refer to an edition that one had actually read. I suppose it's possible that the UK and US editions might have some differences in their content for legal reasons - I believe that English law is more severe than US law when it comes to possible libel. JH (talk page) 09:00, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Libel. That observation interests me here because we say Flint (1970) was published by Simon & Schuster in the U.S. without its chapter 8, "The Great Bridge Scandal".

First editions. Reference to this work here does not provide page numbers. (Indeed Alan Truscott#Publications evidently gives page-count for page(s) number, a mis-use of the {{cite book}} 'pages' parameter, more than a dozen times -- as our Schapiro, Reese, perhaps also Harrison-Gray and Flint biographies did a few times, until now.) Anyway, reference to a mere reprint, or an expansion by front and back material, rather than a substantial revision, should at least suggest that status. And it should provide the original date too.

LCCN 67-17872 --provided by a previous editor (not I?)-- denotes a 1967 catalog record, certainly not for a 1996 work. ... US Library of Congress online catalog records cover all three 1960s editions of the Reese and Truscott books, and matches Terence Reese bibliography for his two 1960s editions, UK and US. This article among others now/soon provides the 1960s bibliographic data, in place of mis-reported 1996 data. (In both biographies, and many others I've improved, External link LC Authorities implemented with template {{LCAuth}} provides LC catalog point of entry.)

2004 editions?

(Toronto: Masterpoint Press, 2004) --those data common to Reese "revised edition" [1] and Truscott "2nd edition" [this article] suggest to me that old Reese and Truscott works were simply re-issued with front and back material provided by another writer, or Truscott. Not necessarily a Toronto undertaking; in the bibliography we give 2004 London data for Reese.

--P64 (talk) 21:33, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Schapiro articles

Someone with access to Hasenson (2004), British Bridge Almanack, please get the title of the second, 1962 article. Prefer to have months or other designations of both Contract Bridge Journal issues.

At Maurice Harrison-Gray#References we say the two articles are reprinted on pages 63 and 64 (here we say, both page 63).

--P64 (talk) 22:25, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Schapiro, Boris (1951). "Knights of the square table". Contract Bridge Journal. Reprinted in Hasenson (2004), p. 63. The extract, having first appeared in the CBJ, was reprinted in the journal British Bridge World in July 1962, from where Hasenson took it (he just puts "BBW", but I think that is the British Bridge World). The reference to the Contract Bridge Journal occurs because a lead-in in to the BBW extract says the article first appeared in the CBJ in 1951, without specifying a month. I would be inclined to change the reference to be to the BBW publication.

Schapiro, Boris (1962). Contract Bridge Journal. Reprinted in Hasenson (2004), p. 63. This material follows on directly in Hasenson under the same "Knights of the Square Table" title (note the title should have capital letters). It appears to be a continuation of the same BBW article, but now new rather than reprinted material. Thus the reference here to the CBJ is in error.

JH (talk page) 09:39, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

BBW deffo = British Bridge World imnsho. Std abbrev in UK Narky Blert (talk) 02:37, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Italics

I dislike the italicisation of "before discussing the matter with the players" under "The Buenos Aires affair". Nothing wrong with the words, but the emphasis strikes me as partisan/pejorative.

I've said my bit, over to a more senior Wikipedian to decide.

Narky Blert (talk) 21:51, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Thanks. The venerable bridge wikipeditor Newwhist promptly removed the offending italics promptly.

On the same matter and theme (italics mine): "The British Bridge League set up its own inquiry under Sir John Foster QC who imposed a criminal burden of proof; the prosecution was required to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. --"The Great British Bridge Scandal: The Story". BBC Radio 4. [2]

--P64 (talk) 23:03, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

WBF rejection as GB captain

Relying on coverage by Alan Truscott in The New York Times,

interject this annotated auto-numbering of now-four columns

1. 1981-09-21, "Bridge: Ban on Reese Had Roots In His Writings on Game"
2. 1981-10-09, not used (below)
3. 1981-10-18, "World Bridge Play Coming to County"
4. 1981-10-19, not used

I added the WBF rejection of Reese as Great Britain npc in the 1981 Bermuda Bowl tournament played in Greater New York. Previously we said only that he was GB captain in the 1981 Euro championship, 2nd place (a world qualification, we didn't say, as BB expanded that year to include two Euro teams).

The British appeal was scheduled for hearing on the eve of the tournament, but Reese had opted to remain home (AT reported in advance). The British official was a no-show and the appeal was postponed, AT reported next day:

• [4] Truscott, "Bridge: Appeals Hearing Put Off In Reese Credentials Case", NYT 1981-10-19.

I didn't include the latter in the article and I didn't find the resolution reported by Truscott [the would-be 5th column].

In that latter column, AT closes his account, "The result of the appeal will thus have no immediate effect on the tourney. However, it will influence future British selections." Perhaps it did.

(P.S. Regarding 1976 we should say "Reese last played ..." rather than participated.)
--P64 (talk) 20:14, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

• [2]. Truscott, "Bridge: Reese will not make trip to Port Chester tourney", NYT 1981-10-09.

— "international furor"; Reese withdraws; coach Gus Calderwood will be npc also; "bridge novel with pornographic elements". GB will pursue appeal as it concerns future status of both Reese and co-author Jeremy Flint (not on 1981 roster but played in 1980 Olympiad, why?).

--P64 (talk) 01:55, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

MarcEdit

A Wikipedia article on MarcEdit, which was invented by near-namesake Terry Reese, exists. Would someone kindly follow up to alert as appropriate.74.137.230.137 (talk) 02:33, 25 August 2023 (UTC)