First and third quotes agree. The second simply reflects an unawareness of alt-sandbagging; the speaker mistakenly believes that rank-manipulation sandbagging is the only form.
You are confusing status with the means of achieving that status. Sandbagger is the status, and winning ranked games with that status is sandbagging. However, there are two ways to achieve that status: by rank manipulation or by using alt accounts. I will not give further explanations for fear of helping the sandbaggers.
Whereas I can kind of understand the appeal of ALT account sandbagging, for the fun of a ratings climb etc.. Iâve never been able to understand what the motive is behind rank manipulation sandbagging.. Whats the purpose of deliberately throwing games? I donât understand what they gain from it..
The purpose of throwing games is to tank their rating and keep crushing weaker players.
This is a question that can be safely answered, so I will do so. Most sandbaggers (by which I mean the intentional, malicious ones, because some âsandbaggingâ can be unintentional), are IMHO low-level sadists. They enjoy humiliating their opponents. They donât mind deliberately losing some games, because they know they could have won and that it leads to the satisfaction of later inflicting what they consider humiliating defeats of others. Many will even play the game out to a win, but then resign or time out just before scoring. Such people have no self-respect, no sense of personhood. If they are children, then one hopes they will grow out of it.
Definitly an outlier, but I stand by that statement.
Sure. I donât blame you for that.
Take it or leave it. Without discussing examples there is no way to come to a conclusion. And yes, our threshold for what concludes sandbagging might be just different.
For what itâs worth I donât have the same problem on other platforms and other mindgames.
Iâm not clear if Conrad, or community moderators, or the wider OGS community, considers every dan player who makes a new account an alt-account sandbagger, as you canât chose a dan rank to start at but the highest is around 3k (or used to be 6k*). Though if the definition includes âfraudulently misrepresenting their rankâ then itâs not, because fraud requires mens rea.
* or 12k or whatever, exact number not important.
Creating one new 3k account if you are a dan player isnât sandbagging, but doing that (say) every week would be IMO. But I believe the majority of sandbaggers are kyu players who create 24k accounts.
Of course not. Moreover, community moderators donât deal with âSandbaggingâ reports, only with âThrown Gameâ reports (an internal subdivision of Sandbagging reports).
If thrown games is a subdivision of sandbagging, then something is inherently wrong. Besides the initial rating wich does not stick for long one canât sandbag without throwing games. On the other hand people can throw games for other reasons.
Also I strongly disagree with your former comment that sandbagging can be unintentional. Sandgagging is the act of deliberately lowering your rank lower than it should be.
Iâm outta here.
Yes, Iâm also kind of curious how all of this works 
So âsandbaggingâ is an offense that needs to be tackled. But there are several flavors of sandbagging. Some of which can be committed unintentially by the âperpetratorâ. While other flavors are âsecretâ and the community is not allowed to even know what they are? But they are still forbidden offenses?
Very interesting.
Edit: Ok, let me rephrase this to be more constructive. I totally agree that we need to fight against bad actors and bad actions. But âhidden lawsâ and ârandom offensesâ donât really help anyone.
The general definition of sandbagging, as defined on chess.com, is
Sandbagging is when a player intentionally lowers their rating by losing on purpose.
So by defintion sandbagging cannot happen âunintentionallyâ and also sandbagging does not have anything to do with âalt accountsâ.
IF OGS uses a different (broader) definition of sandbagging than other platforms then you need to define that somewhere and make clear that those actions are forbidden.
You cannot just casually drop that piece of information in the forum and act like everyone knows what youâre talking about. Because demonstrably we donât.
Edit 2: Btw the chess.com page on sportsmanship is pretty awesome and well written: Sportsmanship | Chess.com Help Center
Chess.com does indicate âChoosing the wrong skill level on a new accountâ as a means of sandbagging.
No, they donât. I see how the grammar in that section might be confusing for a non native speaker. Try to read it again or use a translation tool.
Itâs a direct quote
Third dot point:
Choosing the wrong skill level on a new account.
This is the whole quote:
Sandbagging falls under the broader category of rating manipulation, which includes activities such as:
- Arranging game results intentionally.
- Playing with multiple accounts.
- Choosing the wrong skill level on a new account.
- Losing intentionally to lower oneâs rating.
So either I donât understand English or you two guys donât understand English. I asked ChatGPT and ChatGPT says my understanding is correct. Any native speakers that want to chime in here?
Exactly. Chess.com only allows users to register one account to begin with. But there are no such rules on OGS. You can create infinitely many accounts. Regarding the wrong skill level there are also no clear rules on OGS. If someone is a 14k player does he have to register as 12k or as 25k? No one knows. There is no rule for this afaik.
Mea culpa.
I do think you are being unnecessarily rude
Regenwasserâs reading of the chess.com article is correct, to use the prototypical example:
Penguins are birds, as are:
Crows are not penguins.
My bad. I didnât want to be mean. Iâm bad with expressing my positive attitude in text form. I try to smile in a friendly manner when I say things but that doesnât translate well to text.
Anyway even if crows are called penguins, it doesnât matter in the end if all birds are forbidden.
And as I said, itâs not about choising between 6k and 12k if you are 9k, sandbaggers are more often like 5k who register at 24k.
Seems unlikely that there are secret methods. To sandbag, you deliberately play bad.
An alternative is to resign a winning game, and another is signing up with a low rating.
These arenât exactly sandbagging (which comes from running with bags of sand to slow you down) but it is more typically called smurfing.
