Let's say I am a 6d (I wish lol) and I decide to "sandbag" a 5 kyu. Why is it sandbagging? Because some rank says I am a 6d and this guy is a 5 kyu? What if I think of myself as a 5 kyu player?

Some people play go to feel the pressure of competition, they play against someone their own level because this is the sport mentality however some people don't like to try hard and play with their brains on 100%.

We are not professionals, we don't earn money by playing thus we play for FUN!

Is it fun for me to use all my brainpower and sweat my ba**s off to play against someone my own strength? Maybe.

But it is more fun for me to play with reading as little as needed, playing on instinct etc. (not trick plays)

So in order to play like that on let's say 5 kyu level you would need to be a high dan player.

It has nothing to do with your childhood Mr. Sigmund, it's simply the way different people perceive fun.

I think that sandbaggers don't necessarily want to piss anybody off, they just want to win.

I think I sandbagged once or twice when I lost ten games in a row.

Also agree with Abyssinica that morals are a bunch of hooey.

@leichtloeslich: It could be a story like that, sure. It could also be a grown man who can't handle losing on the internet. In any case, it's definitely not your responsibility if someone is unhappy about losing, no matter how intense the unhappiness, no matter how fragile the losing player's state of mind is. It's just a game, and neither player is owed anything.

On the other hand, if you only ever play the alternative account when you're clearly not up to playing at your best, you're not really faking anything. The rank on that account is fairly consistent since you're not deliberately losing games in order to keep it down. Especially on a server like IGS it's hardly strange to find yourself playing people who are underrated, thanks to that slow-as-molasses rating adjustment.

If someone thinks it's "right" for him to poke your eye out for no reason at all, you're OK with it, and you let him ? Just want to be clear, are you referring only to this "sandbagging" in Go, or, do you mean there's no right or wrong at all, ever ?

If nobody sinned we wouldn't have any stories to tell. Poke my eye out if you want.

yeh - I guess it's fun crushing people and making big kills. sdk's are fair game in my book and can recognise what's going on but doing it to complete beginners is a bit nasty IMO - and I mean making sure you lose 50% of your games to maintain a low rank hiding your true rank and crushing players - not the result of a losing streak or having an account to play Go with after you've had 5 beers. I can't imagine it's much good for the sandbaggers game though long term.

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I am John. John-I-Am.

In my analysis I concentrated on the sandbagger... but his action can affect the other player. Suppose a player is in a slump; feels bad recently about his game and plays with a sandbagger and loses terribly. .. this could crush his confidence and even self esteem .

I like someone saying that they are bullies. Yes, they are.

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si no puedes triunfar, muere gloriosamente

Where does it state that you must play on your own level? Is it against some kind of go server rules?

As long as the sandbagger is not playing trick moves it doesn't matter. You can play trick moves against someone your own level and win easily if they get tricked all the time so we are obviously not talking about trick moves.

I would be glad to play against some pro who would crush me a lot by using correct moves and shapes. Again I must stress out that I wouldn't like to play against someone stronger (or anyone at that matter) that would only play tricks with me, but as we notice some sandbaggers do play trick moves on beginners but others don't.

If I go and play against a beginner, as long as I am playing the correct moves and shapes the beginner is playing against themselves by playing overplays which I punish corerctly, or by wasting moves allowing me to take big points. Sandbagging is good, as long as they don't trick a weaker player, which is another discussion.

There is not a divine rule that can force you to play at a certain level... we are discussing here about motivations. What makes a person to be a sandbagger

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si no puedes triunfar, muere gloriosamente

What about the profile of those who have the irrational belief that there are really that many sandbaggers?

leichtloeslich: I'm sorry to hear that.

tentano: Unless someone has had an experience similar to leichtloeslich's
-- and I hope not -- it's extremely difficult to understand how he feels.

Ah come on, leichtloeslich is trollin' trollin' trollin'.

I'm only concerned about sandbaggers because of the rank system. If nobody had ranks (like in real life playing someone you don't know), it would be ok.
But with the rank system it's bad because
- it deflates ranks.
- abuses the handycap system.

On the other hand don't forget the sandbaggers we all love: strong players who put up videos of their sandbagged games while providing commentaries. Those are very helpful and I would be a hypocrite if I didn't admit that.

Maybe yes, maybe no.

@leichtloeslich - thanks for sharing the story; you told it well.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Who knows? It serves to make a point, whether the story is real or not.

Sandbagging is people purposely losing games to keep their rating low. Strong players trying to win to raise the rank, or playing for fun in a random account are not sandbaggers. Yes, their real strength is not the strength of the account... But so what? They may have a hard time swimming through the system, or just ran through a dry run of loses, or stopped playing a while ago and just went back.

Also, at what difference level is it sandbagging? My slow KGS is at 3k now, and my blitz was hovering between 5 and 6, almost 3 stones off. I was having a bad spell at blitz, playing stupid. I just won 3 straight without much opposition (I didn't play really well, but pulled off a few tactical moves that had little counter in two of them, my opponents timed out, in the other I won by 15 points without much effort either.) Was it sandbagging? Just yesterday and the day before I was losing to players this level, even though I shouldn't (or not that often, statistically.)

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

To me, sandbaggers and the people who whine about sandbaggers - they are exactly the same coin, just different sides. If anybody wants to make a psychological profile of one, the same profile will most likely apply to the other. How's that for controversy?

PS>
Every beginner (or any player, pretty much ) I ever met wants to play against a pro. They will lose... yet they yearn to play against such a player. Well - when they get sandbagged by a much stronger player, its pretty much the same. They lose, and often they have no clue why. Just like they would against the pro. I have seen players line up and pay good money to get clobbered by a pro in a simul = lose without knowing why.

Bottom line - you meet a sandbagger, try to learn from him/her. If you don't feel like learning, resign and move on, why waste time. What's the big deal?

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Sandbaggers are people not obsessed with their rank, so they end with a higher strength per rank ratio than others due to using the same account when drinking, tired, at 3 A.M., while a cat is walking over the keyboard or whatever.

I've never played someone who I thought was sandbagging. Sometimes my opponent is stronger than me. Losing to stronger players is how you improve. Honestly I never really think about it beyond that.

Winning feels good, and losing feels bad. I know some people say they enjoy the game the exact same amount win or lose, but I don't believe them. If you get invested in a game of go, then you care about the outcome.

Special shout-out to blackmage, who made an account on these forums specifically to tell us to poke him in the eye. Welcome, if we ever play in person I'll be sure to bring a sharp stick

This.

If they win, then their ranks will update and they'll no longer be sandbaggers.

Don't forget to bring a healer for refusing to heal him because he's evil. Also a fighter to make him explode, because it's funny. You can have the fighter poke his eyes with a stick too, if you tell him that the stick will turn into a swordchuk.

This is a good comment.