Amir Levin, one of the authors of the prosecutor’s document, entitled ‘Israeli Doctors’ , yesterday commented on Bridge Winners about the rebuttal document by Fisher and Schwartz. With the kind permission of Levin, we are publishing the full extract of his comments that first appeared on Bridge Winners.
As one of the three “authors” of the coughing files known as the “Israeli Doctors Files”, we intended not to expose or respond to any of the material we submitted to the Israeli Committee in the public. We believe it should be deliberated and discussed by the Israeli Committee first.
However, as Mr. Fisher decided to leak one of his “arguments” (while the other material remains confidenatial until tomorrow I persume), I am more than happy to respond to the hand in question:
In our files, we noticed 73 coughs made by Mr. Fisher during the bidding (from 4 different tournaments btw, dated from June 2014 until July 2015).
We created 3 files:
(*) The first 2 files relate to the coughings which we noticed. We included EVERY cough we noticed during the bidding in order to maintain objectivity and in order not to “cherry pick” anything. These 2 files were submitted to the Israeli Committee at the end of August 2015; they were one of the reasons that a Committee was established in the first place.
(*) The 3rd file is what we called a “statistical file” – that is, this is a file which goes through ALL hands played by FS during this 4 tournaments and for which there are available videos. A total of 200 hands. We went through EVERY single hand – whether Fisher coughs in it during the bidding or not. In each hand we detailed whether Fisher coughs; where is the location of the tray when doing so; and whether or not he has a minimum hand or marginal hand or non-minimum; we also noticed Schwartz’s actions in these hands and detailed whether he makes an underbid or overbid or whether his actions are non-relevant to the coughing or non-couging by Mr. Fisher.
We submitted this file to the Israeli Committee AFTER it held its first mettings and after the time frame for sending all material was agreed upon between the Israeli Committee and FS (being September 30, 2015).
I would just state this, and will do that in CAPITAL LETTERS to emphasize:
THE HAND PRESENTED BY MR. FISHER WAS CATAGORIZED BY US IN OUR 3RD FILE AS A HAND IN WHICH MR. FISHER COUGHS (HAWKS MILDLY, TO BE MORE PERCISE), BUT HAS A NON-MINIMUM HAND (WHAT ONE MIGHT CALL A “FALSE-POSITIVE” HAND).
WHAT MR. FISHER FORGOT TO TELL YOU IS THAT WE FOUND ONLY 2 HANDS OUT OF 62 HANDS IN WHICH HE COUGHS (OR 73 TOTAL COUGHS DURING THE BIDDING) THAT ARE NON-MINIMUM. THIS IS ONE OF THEM.
SO, IN FACT, IN THIS HAND WE HAVE NO ARGUMENT WITH MR. FISHER.
I would also like to add with respect to some of the comments I’ve read here, that we did notice Mr. Schwartz’s cough in this hand and commented about that in our files (one might wonder whY Mr. Fisher ommitted this part from our file). However, it was the only cough made by Mr. Schwarts that we have noticed when looking at the videos.
I would not go through all our material at this stage. BUT, I do have one final comment or suggestion to Laura Componeschi from the neapoleatan site – you claim you are a journalist. If this is indeed the case, I would suggest that from now on, when you relate to matters concerning our material, contact us as well in order to get our response. That is what jounalists realy do.
Amir Levin
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Fisher & Schwartz Defence Files: Hand from Polish Championships »