Part of my daily bridge reading includes columns, newspaper articles and a rundown of anything that might be happening in the bridge universe that day. Occasionally, I’ll chase down specific topics running from one related link to another – and this week, some of it was a few archived articles about cheating in bridge.

It’s happened a few times throughout the game’s history. Even James Bond was technically a bridge cheat – but saved the world for it – and I think that’s the only occasion any good might have come from cheating at the table.

Somewhere during this process I also read about someone who was banned for cheating from Fortnite. For money, no less, and the poor kid’s much older family had gone to the media in all sincerity and told journalists that he’s a very nice boy, undeserving of the ban. (Well, that’s just not how it works…) 

Why the hell would anyone cheat at anything? Personally, I don’t see the point. Sure, there’s the rush of winning once, but it’s never worth it considering two things: First, you’ll almost certainly be disgraced in the inevitable event that people find out – and second, you’ll get praise for something that wasn’t you, and what’s the point in that?

Incentives to cheat exist everywhere in life. It’s just not everyone who takes the opportunities given. For most people, your conscience would surely kick in at some point and in some way.

As a younger child, I remember having to write an exam – homeschooled – with my grandfather acting as the watchful eye. The official, fancier word for this was an invigilator. Something I remember feeling pretty clever for knowing approaching about ten years old.

My grandfather paced back and forth for most of the exam.

“I could just tell you.”

It’s hard to describe what I felt at that moment. Or maybe it isn’t at all. I felt like Jesus being tempted by the devil in the desert, except my grandfather was far less suave than the cartoon depictions of the devil was used to at that point.

He shifted his weight back and forth with a particularly weird smile that showed his golden teeth in a perfect Mephistopheles-like way.

After a few seconds, I wrote down what I thought the answer was. I didn’t take the bait. I didn’t want the answer outright. And I remember that I’d studied pretty hard for the exam and would rather have done really badly on my own than achieve better results for having cheated.

What I learned during that exact moment was one of those valuable life lessons that you’ll only end up thinking of years later.

When it comes to cheating, there’s really no point.