There’s a kind of bias in deducing from forum posts that the problem is widespread since those who have no issue will not make a forum thread about it.
But ok, it at least shows that, for some reason, some people do have this feeling. How widespread it is will not be determined by sharing individual experiences anyway.
That’s a stretch. I don’t think anybody said that; at least I didn’t, and I agree that quasi-sandbagging is likely a smaller problem than intentional sandbagging.
I think the view (that you disgree with) is rather that this discussion is about a non-radical solution to a non-terrible problem.
Right, but it would be interesting to understand what may be the cause.
A few years ago, after I had played a game against a sandbagger (on Fox, not on OGS), I started to suspect every opponent. After each bad loss, I looked at my opponent’s game history and… I found nothing. Generally a sandbagger often resigns or loses by time while being ahead. However I almost never found that pattern in my opponent’s games.
Similarly, when AI became widely available and easy to use (LeelaZero, then Katago), I started to become paranoid and suspected everybody of cheating. Then, after analyzing my games, I found mistakes on both sides, with the winrate curve going up and down. Whereas when I played against a real botter, there was nothing I could do, all his moves were strong, some of which unnatural for a player of my level.
So I don’t think there are more than 1-2% sandbaggers or botters at high SDK/low dan level. That’s a lot for the team of moderators, I guess about 100 games per day, but not enough to have a significant effect on a given player’s rank (except the sandbagger or the botter of course).
So personally
I don’t think sandbagging (real or quasi or whatever) is a big problem here.
The solution to add a [?] after 1 year without ranked game doesn’t feel radical to me. On the contrary it feels very light because I play hundreds of rated games every year so I find it hard to believe that playing just one a year is difficult. But if someone says that it’s difficult for him, of course I can’t dispute other people’s feelings.
I’m not the one who began citing individual experiences of sandbagger encounters. I cited the case of snakesss and others to counter the anecdotes previously posted.
I didn’t say anyone said that: I said that. It is my characterization.
The solution is radical because it stigmatizes, in a very callous and mean-spirited way, people who have topped out in their improvement and do not feel like playing more ranked games. Forcing them to do so is a very fascistic solution.
I’m not the one who began citing individual experiences of sandbagger encounters. I cited the case of snakesss and others to counter the anecdotes previously posted.
Yes, I know. Not saying you did wrong.
I didn’t say anyone said that: I said that. It is my characterization.
You said it was a “terrible problem”, which is not your characterization. So I took it as you trying to portray, sarcastically, what you felt was the adverse position.
a very callous and mean-spirited way
a very fascistic solution.
I felt like replying with humor, but given our past exchanges I’ll abstain.
You are talking about rank-manipulation sandbaggers, who are indeed, in my opinion, insignificant. Alt sandbaggers are quite different; they have never been detectable by players, and now some or most of them are not detectable by mods. Beyond that, I will not speak.
As I understand it, botters have become much more clever today. They simply use the bot on an occasional move, so there is not a large pattern of blue-circle plays.
No one says it is difficult. My argument is that it is callous and mean-spirited to force someone who has topped out his rank to play ranked against potential sandbaggers—or who doesn’t want to for whatever reason.
Alt sandbagging is normally visible in the game history. I almost never see that pattern in my opponents’ history.
I know people can do that, however I suspect that cheating becomes an addiction like cigarette. You start with 1 or 2 and end up smoking dozens per day. Anyway if a few percent of players use AI in such an invisible way that they still make frequent mistakes, it can’t affect my rank significantly.
I would add however that, although I don’t thing I’m often confronted to sandbagging or botting, I’m not saying these problems are insignificant. To make an analogy, in more than a half century, I have never been confronted with violent crime. But I’m not saying that the police are useless. Without the police, crime would be much more prevalent.
If it’s so easy, then being forced to do something very easy (just tick a "ranked’ box) shouldn’t be qualified as “callous and mean-spirited”. So I suspect that most people who stop completely for years to play ranked games do so because of rank anxiety. And of course I can understand that they don’t like being forced to do something which makes them anxious.
I think that there may be a language problem here. It is not a matter of difficult or easy; that doesn’t even enter into it. It may be easy to jump into a shark pool, but one doesn’t do it anyway.
It is not a matter of “rank anxiety” per se. A person who believes he has topped out his rank has no motive to play ranked. Why should he? And he does have a motive not to play ranked for fear of sandbaggers. Under those circumstances, I believe forcing him to play ranked is callous and mean-spirited.
Also, another thought, does this mean that everyone will eventually end up as [rank + ?], at least after they die, if not sooner?
Not easy psychologically. When I said “difficult” or “easy” I was talking about the psychological aspect.
To get more serious opponents for example. At some point I had some moderate form of rank anxiety and tried to play unranked games. It turned out a few percent of my opponents didn’t care to finish the game. So I thought playing ranked games was a more rewarding experience, even if my rank doesn’t move.
As I said above, I estimate that sandbaggers exist but there are not enough of them to affect my rank significantly. I was also fearful of sandbaggers at some point, until I checked my opponents’ history and realized that when I suspected people to be sandbaggers, I was deluding myself. Instead of acknowledging that I was playing badly I was trying to reject the fault on my opponent.
The reverse situation also happened. When I was 9k (a real 9k, not sandbagging), after I killed my opponent’s group, he resigned and wrote angrily “#$@! sandbagger” in the chat.
That’s worse on KGS: the accounts die after a period of inactivity. Anyway is there a rank after death? Who cares about their rank after death?
Is every dan player who makes a new account an alt sandbagger because they are stronger than the new account initial rank (and OGS doesn’t let you set initial rank, a feature I have long advocated for)?
I assume it’s only the case if the person deletes/abandons their account every time they climb back to their actual rank, to start again from the bottom.
This is my experience as well. I’ve met sandbaggers before, but I am more bothered by the unpleasant playing experience of a badly matched opponent than the effect on my rank (which fluctuates on its own).
Ranks have an uncertainty, they generally fluctuate by ±1. A stable 5k player oscillates between 4k and 6k. Personally my improvement rate, as measured by my EGF rank, has been about 1 stone/year since 2018, that’s not enough to be visible, so I’ve always been wondering if I had stopped improving, and never knew if a promotion on a given server was due to progress or to natural fluctuations of rank. I’ve also been demoted many times on various servers/accounts. So even if in hindsight I hadn’t topped out yet, it wasn’t obvious at all at the time.
Anyway this is irrelevant. Whether a player has topped out or is still improving at a rate of 1 stone every 600 games doesn’t change the fact that sandbagging has a microscopic effect compared to natural fluctuations of the rank (±1 stone). What you describe (fear of being demoted because of sandbaggers) sounds to me like rejecting one’s bad play or lack of progress on others.
Let me add that I understand that fear. I know it’s hard to accept losses or lack of progress, rank anxiety is quite common and I’ve had it myself.
