Editor's note: Bridge Winners has received overwhelming evidence alleging improper communication between the world’s #1 and #2 ranked bridge players, Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes, during the 2014 European Championships. The pair was on the Monaco team that placed second in this event, earning Monaco a spot in the upcoming Bermuda Bowl.

Many people worked on reviewing Vugraph and video evidence, but we would like to especially give credit to Maaijke Mevius from the Netherlands, who originally contacted Boye Brogeland with her theory that the angle at which Fantoni and Nunes placed their card on the table when they led conveyed information about their holding in the suit. Brogeland immediately recognized that she was onto something, and enlisted others to assist him, including Ishmael Del’Monte, Brad Moss, Kit Woolsey, Jeff Meckstroth, Chris Willenken, Norman Beck, Tom Hanlon, Per-Ola Cullin, and Steve Weinstein. From there things moved quickly, with many people reviewing hours of footage and testing the theory.

The Videos Speak: Fantoni-Nunes

I examined the following hypothesis regarding the way Fantoni-Nunes placed their opening lead on the table:

• The card is placed vertically when:
• the led suit contains an unseen high honor (ace, king, or queen) OR
• the led card is a side-suit singleton in a trump contract

• Otherwise, the card is placed horizontally.

I examined ten matches where Fantoni and Nunes were recorded on Vugraph at the 2014 EBTC.  The ten matches in question are listed below. For each match, you can view YouTube screenshots of the opening lead for each hand at the point in time when Fantoni or Nunes made an opening lead.

Full-match Board-by-board screenshots

• Monaco-Bulgaria
• Monaco-Denmark
• Monaco-England
• Monaco-Iceland 
• Monaco-Ireland
• Monaco-Norway
• Monaco-Poland
• Monaco-Romania
• Monaco-Russia 
• Monaco-Sweden

On the next page of this article, for each match, the following information is displayed for each hand they were on defense:

1. The board number
2. Whether it's a suit or notrump contract
3. The holding which was led from.  If a trump was led, this is indicated by "tr"
4. The rank of the card led
5. My observation about the placement of the opening lead card
6. A link to the video of the match at approximately the time the opening lead is made

Monaco - Bulgaria  (<--- view full match screenshot recap)

BBO hand records of the match

Monaco - Denmark

BBO hand records of the match

Monaco - England

* = BBO record incorrect

** = signal does not match hypothesis

BBO hand records of the match

Monaco - Iceland 

BBO hand records of the match

Monaco - Ireland

BBO hand records of the match

Monaco - Norway

** = signal does not match hypothesis

BBO hand records of the match

Monaco - Poland

BBO hand records of the match

Monaco - Romania

BBO hand records of the match

Monaco - Russia

** = signal does not match hypothesis

BBO hand records of the match

Monaco - Sweden

BBO hand records of the match

There were 85 hands in this sample.  On 82 of the 85 hands, this simple hypothesis correctly predicted the orientation of the opening lead.