"You name it, he did it," Wolf says.

In 1991, Cole got into trouble with the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) after the preliminary heats of one intercollegiate competition.

Alan J. Miller, who was overseeing heats in the tournament, says he noticed "a score that was achieved at Harvard that was a very, very, very high score." A patters of unusually high scores had been coming out of the University's bridge team for several years, Miller says.

So Miller, who owns a new York bridge club where Cole played during college, find a complaint.

"Given the parties involved, [and since] I had heard rumors from people at Harvard. I said to the ACBL, 'you know, there might by a problem. Don't you think there might be a problem?" Miller says.

In bridge, according to Wolf, wining about 57 or 58 percent of the tricks is usually enough to win a game. Wolf, a nine-times world champion, says the best score he's ever attained is 81 percent.

But Cole, who has never won a major national championship, reported a score of percent in the 1991 tournament, Wolf says.

After an investigation, the ACBL concluded that Cole had developed a finger-signaling system with a number of different bridge partners, "would change scores on the score sheets" and was "very unethical at the table," Wolf says.

Citing infractions going back to his college days, the league suspended Cole for six months and put him on probation for two years, officials said.

Such a penalty is unusual. In a typical year, 15 members of the bridge league are suspended, but only "one or two" of those suspensions are for cheating as Cole's was, according to Wolf.

Cole was not present at his ACBL hearing, and he sold several members of the Harvard bridge community--as well as friends such as Heller--that he was only suspended because of that absence.

For his part, Wolf, who chaired the committee that suspended the Harvard graduate student, says he sent Cole a letter informing him of the hearing. Wolf says Cole signed for the letter, but after the suspension was handed down, Cole claimed his girlfriend had forged his signature.

Cole appealed for a new trial and the chance to defend himself. But Wolf denied the request, and Cole was forced to sit out for half a year.

Those sympathetic to Cole say his problems with the bridge community likely stem from his failure to show proper deference.

"My impression from what I'd heard from Bill was that a lot of it was a result of his lack of respect for the aura of the game," Waxenberg says.

But the suspension did not appear to sour Cole on bridge, or tame his desire to win.