Western Dan Challenge (Kyu player prizes too!) UPDATE: $1550 in prizes now!

General Go Discussion
333

Hmmm, I beg to differ. intentionality is part of sandbagging. For example in local official competitions, especially when there are less than a dozen players by default many of the games are mismatched. Strong players will wipe all the rest and collect the prizes too if there are any. I never encountered any association with idea of sandbagging. There was a lot of disgruntling for not having worthy opponents, or very often about the pairing. And those in the lower end never complained, even there was no chance for winning, or access to prizes. The gain was the chance to play against strong players. And this involved traveling hundreds of kms

As long as you play under your own account, your rank will be adjusted quite fast. I really like OGS where the rank is adjusting much faster than on KGS.

And I see this subject being addressed quite often. So here are my 2 cents. Sometimes I was bothered by this idea too, but I realized that is quite complex, and it does not worth addressing it. It really does not matter. When you start your game, do your best, and if your opponent is stronger than the rank shows, than that it. You had a nice game. In official games I had some opponents that wiped me out even their ranks was 6k or lower and I was an eternal 4k. It happens a lot with young rising players, but one was a veteran player, with a lot of competition activity, so he should have had a better rank. Frustrated, I fell in the trap of sandbagging idea. I even noticed his countless losses at young players from his club. And this is obvious, the games are recorded officially on EGD. But you cannot know for sure if the losses are intentional, or real losses. The young players are rising, they play a lot with the teacher officially, and win for good, and so, lower his rank. Recovering the rank in competitions is hard, plus being a teacher you know many tricks so a casual player like me is a sure victim. So after being ”sanbagged ” twice by him, I just learned that he is a worthy opponent. No more surprises there.

Now, take a look at my actual rank at EGD. really big drops in ranking. Costel Pintilie | Player card | E.G.D. - European Go Database
Who does not know me, will may think that I lost on purpose to have easier games later. But is really a stupid strategy. Traveling a lot to be bored with fake games. And one or two ranks lower does not really counts at pairing since there are just few players, and a wide range or ranks.

Influenced along the time by this recurring subject I started to suspect some players of sandbagging. One example is Sofiam. Two or three ranks under me, but crushing me constantly. I have won only one game and lost seven. After some discussion when somebody was accused of lowering the rank I checked and noticed the graph ”suspiciously” going up and down,and more, with regularity that color scheme was reversed for a week every month. I do not quite understand that color scheme, but it looked like the player was losing on purpose for a week, and three just playing under rank. Trying to understand the color scheme, I noticed that regularity at every other player, even mine :slight_smile: So I got even more confused by that color scheme.

In the end I assume that the graph is so uneven because is changing fast and recording the ups and downs of a player very accurate. It is still weird that regularity. But players have good days and bad days, and losing streaks are due some other causes, not sandbagging intention. For example this WDC activated me after a long pause and lost quite a lot in the first week. Recovered next week, but somehow dipped again twice till the and of the month. It may that biorhythm. I checked it long time ago, and seemed to correlate with my competitions results. Or may be other reasons like health issues.

So, in the end, even I was influenced by discussions along the time I decided that sandbagging is not real. Or maybe it is in some rare cases, but does not matter. And if even it exists, I do not care. If I am surprised by a strong response from a lower ranked player, it will happen once or twice, next I am aware that the player is stronger than me. The player is not stronger than the majority of players of my rank because of the style of the play. The majority is unable to cope with my wild style, but my stile is punished by the players able to punish my mistakes.

And if there are some players unable to cope with being defeated, and try this method of winning I pity them. It is childish and useless. The same as using bots to win. We know that a bot will defeat any player in the world. What satisfaction is to copy the moves and see this again? The victim may think that was defeated by the cheater, but the cheater knows very well that he did not win, only the bot won. but what is the point?

So as long as somebody play under his own account, sandbagging is not an issue. Yes, creating a new account, and hiding the real strength is sandbagging. But this work just for a little. The rank will be corrected soon.

My dissertation was quite long, but is the effect of years of encounter with the subject. And my philosophy gave me peace of mind, and I shared my experience with the hope that others will find this peace.

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334

That’s not how I meant it: whether the sandbagging was intentional or unintentional is irrelevant, since there was no sandbagging in the first place. It’s irrelevant whether pink unicorns eat grass or don’t eat grass, since there are no pink unicorns.

I believe the claim was that this was sandbagging, since the majority of games were played against opponents several ranks weaker. However, that’s not what sandbagging is: nobody is deceiving anybody about their rank. On OGS we have the option to limit the rank of your opponent, so if you don’t want strong opponents accepting your game, there’s an easy way to disable it from happening (assuming your opponents are not sandbagging, of course).

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335

I think that @ehomba is contending that intentionality should be necessary for something to be called sandbagging. It comes back to what we define as “sandbagging”.

Does a concept like “deception” imply “intentional” behavior, or is “unintentional deception” possible?

What about Go players that sometimes play drunk?

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336

I think it makes sense to consider sandbagging/airbagging a spectrum. I’d say playing drunk is a form of sandbagging, because it will give the player an edge later down the line when they are sober (assuming alcohol affects their play negatively). However, this sandbagging is not so strong that it needs to be regulated on a recreational go server.

Similarly, I often play correspondence less seriously than live, so when I do finally play live, I get a couple easy games. Not the best behavior, but I don’t think anyone is reporting me for it :man_shrugging:

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337

I know at least one player that has 2 accounts, one for sober and one for drunk. And other player marked the drunk games as bar games, so the opponents to know:)

I myself have low times when I behave like drunk. Is due brain failure not alcohol induced. but I do not bother to explain. Who will care? I just play because this the only thing I am able to perform, I play very bad. and some opponents may get upset, but in that state of mind anyway I do not care whom I upset.

And yes, the short version of my message is… sandbagging is not real.

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338

I do have to wonder which kinds of physical ailments most people have in mind as being excusably debilitating, ever so often.
But I’m pretty sure most haven’t thought about some obvious ones.

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339

Imo it would be sandbagging if you drank to play deliberatley worse AND were waiting to sober up. Point of sandbagging is to have an easy time beating other players I believe ? If you are drunk that is not the case (ime lmao).

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340

Sandbagging:

  1. Intentionality.
  2. Dissimulating your real strength atm you play.
  3. Playing weaker players.

?

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341

How are we defining intentionality? If someone plays drunk, knowing that it will adversely affect their rank, I believe this is an example of general intent.

(What I mean by general intent: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/general-vs-specific-intent.html)

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342

Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that sandbagging is not real.

As with nearly every online game, there are bound to be trolls that deliberately lose to deflate their apparent strength just to lull weaker players into getting unexpectedly crushed.

However, I want to explore the other cases that are less clear and where intent and motives might be different.

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343

I feel called out for my St Patrick’s day stream :rofl:

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:sob:

Also: Prove it!

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Thanks for the link, very interesting. :slight_smile:

One could argue that people playing drunk on a moonshine account don’t sandbag because their act doesn’t meet the (badly formulated) second criteria: They aren’t playing at their unaltered strength. There ain’t the intent of playing an easy game at the expense of their opponent.

For example a 3 dan knows playing around four stones weaker when drunk, makes an account at 1k and has an about even result in wins and losses on that rank.

If the same 3dan would make a moonshine account at 8k, knowing that he/she loses only 4 stones when drunk, it would qualify as sandbagging.

It is like giving yourself a handicap. ?

Btw, I think general intent suffices to make it qualify as sandbagging if the other points are met too. (?)

*edit: I will make a “moonshine fledermaus” account for playing drunk/high approach go, I like the idea and name lmao ^^

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346

Totally agree! If the strength always (roughly) matches the rank, there is no sandbagging!

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347

https://www.goratings.org/en/players/1313.html

The ultimate sandbagger.
1 for sure he is doing intentionally.
2 Who actually knows his real strength? since did not played enough games with AI till loses half and see the real strength?
3 Obviously true.

:wink:

And as I said, one may try sandbagging, but after few wins the strength will be revealed the rank will rise, no more surprise for weaker players. In this idea I said that sandbagging is not real. Because as I said, in real tournaments it happens a lot of unbalanced strength of those two opponents. But there is no actual dissimulation. And also rising players. I mentioned this story before but I repeat it here. Till 90 to 94 my country being in a rising period used to win a lot at European congresses. Those left home got every year by default one more rank. in 95 myself attended the Congress and got two ranks in two weeks. We still had lower ranks than our actual strength. We wiped a lot of those encountered, especially Japanese players well known for inflated ranks.

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348

It takes more than a few wins for the rank to rise to their actual strength. Intentional (as in specific intent with knowledge of the consequence) sandbaggers can easily throw half or more of their games so that they stay low, or even go lower. They can intentionally resign games with a winning position, or disconnect to lose.

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349

I wouldn’t include playing irl in sandbagging, as it (usually) lacks intentionality and people who would like to sandbag don’t have the opportunities internet provides. Resigning a won rl tournament game to stick to your rank would make quite a stir. ^^

What you tell about your experience reminds me of something a friend told me, which caused a problem for the french go federation years ago: In the early days of internet go, suddenly people came in with a lot of playing experience. As it was for the for the first time they played rl tournaments they gave themselves (unintentionally) too low of a rank. The ranking system in use wasn’t adapted, so they had a lot of easy wins and still stuck around their (faulty) rank for several tournaments, to the dismay of their fellow competitors. The FFG tweaked the system since, to make sure these players rank up faster.

For my part I don’t mind too much if players register at lower ranks (though it is sandbagging):

  1. As long as they don’t voluntarily resign/throw games afterwards to stick to a rank non-representative of their actual ranks, and eventually climb up.

  2. If the number of acounts are marginal compared to those of regular players. (I can see that it could screw a ranking system if there were many of them.)

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350

I fear we hijacked the thread. Sandbagging is not quite on topic here. Maybe these messages should be moved.

However.

I do not quite can wrap my mind around this idea.

So… to resign a won game, in order to win later a game. This is insane.

Any sane player want to play with good players. to learn to advance. to have interesting games.
The pleasure is in the struggle to win, not in a win without meaning. And this is true for any game. Once I found a hack for an RPG game. I enjoyed briefly the idea of an easy advance, but in few minutes I got bored.

So, anybody looking for an easy win has a problem. Maybe just a regular frustration, or worse. So let them win till they get cured. I am personally glad to be sandbagged.(unless I am too tired to play, and actually think) In a way sandbagging is free teaching, so is good :slight_smile: Many pay money to play with better players.

And actually speaking of teaching and throwing games, I realize that I am a sandbagger myself. At one point in the progress of a student may need encouragement, and slip a win, not actually deserved. And is quite hard to fake a loss and make it credible. And if the student gets cocky, then crush here it comes.

I even have a story in this subject. It was not quite a student, but a newer player. Smart guy, advanced fast but my decades of experience still kept me ahead, even I was plateaued at 4 k. Obviously there was handicap games, and at even games even the score was close, the win refused to come. I always felt him behind, never make me feel in danger. Until one day when a win came for good. I did not threw it. Maybe I had a bad day, or he a really good one and he won. Nothing wrong. And I usually do not mind losing. But he started laughing, and very confident stated that from now on I am his victim. I got actually annoyed, and without thinking, I reminded him that advancing in Go is not so easy, and my years of experience have a lot of weight even I never studied. And I promised that he will not be able to catch me sooner than two years. He was not so far behind me so my bet was quite a hazard. For me was just words thrown at anger but he took it seriously. Now and then we clashed, he grew, games were harder, but somehow never managed to beat me in those two years, even as strength he was at my level in a year or less.

Anyway, conclusion. Sandbagging is just disguised free teaching.

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351

That is such a great story. Thanks for sharing :grin: There’s so much to like in that post but my favourite bit is this:

This should become a proverb!

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352

Completely missed this event. Hope that there’s a second edition in the future.
Maybe if I participate in enough of these, I’ll actually reach dan level one day.

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