If people are going to regard different strengths at different time settings as sandbagging, why don't you regard someone who played tournament X in a bad mental state and then a few weeks later tournament Y in a well-rested, good mind state as sandbagging?

No, there is no deception involved in either of these scenarios. It is reasonable to expect that a 5k is perfectly capable of making dan level moves as well as ddk moves. What he does most of the time however is to make 5k moves. This is different than playing at a time setting in which most of the time he can make 3k moves, but insists on playing as a 5k.

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Patience, grasshopper.

During the period I was an admin, KGS bans always included IP address. As far as I know, it was that way for several years before I became an admin. It is possible it was different when the server's ban handling methods were very new.

WMS placed an upper limit on the amount of time a ban would be in effect. He did this because he was aware that many ISP's provide dynamic IP addresses, and the longer a ban was in effect, the more likely an innocent person would be caught in another user's ban.

mhlepore, Abyssinica,

Yes, it's universally acknowledged that condensing billions of neurons to a single digit number has its limitations. That entirely misses the point.

In front of you: two ratings -- 1 dan and 3 kyu.

Give certain conditions, including what sausages you had for breakfast, or if you had a fight with your partner, you on average play at 1 dan level.

Under other conditions, you on average play at 3 kyu level.

You go to a tourney. Given the conditions of this tourney, if you enter as 1 dan, you know or expect to play at 1 dan level.

If you enter as 3 kyu, you know or expect to still play at 1 dan level, with a significant chance of cleaning up.

Do you feel you should be congratulated for entering as 3 kyu given that you know or expect you will play at 1 dan level at this tourney ?

I just see people complaining about some people having different strengths at different time settings. What's the point in YOUR analogy? That it's somehow wrong to have different strengths depending on your state of being and how you play?

The way I see it is that having different strengths at different time settings is like having different strengths at different states of mind. Yet if someone always plays their rated games in a bad mood, suddenly when they play in a good mood they're now sandbagging and they should be chastised for it?

I thought that what rank you were entering the tourney at was preset before hand. I.e, you had an AGA rating before and that's what you were pre-entered as. NOT that the rank was self-selected at the time of joining.

Hi Abyssinica,

Have you been to any AGA rated tourneys ?
(Actual question; not rhetorical or sarcastic; .)

It's both. Please re-read post 18 for one scenario.
I believe the touney director also has the discretion or power to enter a person at a certain rating, given certain conditions.

Anyway, if you still don't understand my analogy, or you disagree, or you feel everything is just fine to enter at 2-3 stones lower than your expected level at a tourney or a rated online game, hey, I don't have anything more to discuss with you on this topic. Enjoy.

Oh, mhlepore, Abyssinica,

Could you give a concrete example of what you consider to be sandbagging in Go, and the reasons.

From what you've written here so far, I'm not certain you believe there is such a thing as sandbagging in Go, or do you ?

That's not the scenario. Yes, your scenario actually happens, quite often in fact. I was referring to an opposite of that scenario.

No, so I thought we were talking about a hypothetical tournament. Your analogy is fine for me in the case of someone being able to enter the tournament at whatever rank they desire, but I don't much care for it if the rank they entered the tournament with was the one that they had built up from prior results. Say, they had a bad month but still decided to play in tournaments so they were at their 3k level for that period of time.

My point is that I don't believe that various changes in someone's true rank/strength based on time settings, state of mind, or just their physical health counts as sandbagging if the situation occurs where they're a few stones stronger than the average.

Could you give a concrete example of what you consider to be sandbagging ? (post 28)

Being a 3 dan on Tygem (And having 3d on average strength given your up and downswings) and registering for the AGA and entering a tournament as a 5 kyu.

For simplicity and clarity, could we stick to just one rating system, say AGA 3 dan and AGA 5 kyu -- is this OK ?

Suppose your above hypothetical person plays at AGA 3 dan level given slow time settings,
and the same person plays at AGA 5 kyu level in blitz.

Two questions for you:
- Do you think that is possible ( a swing of AGA 3 dan and AGA 5 kyu, from slow vs. blitz ) ?
- If the AGA 3 dan and AGA 5 kyu difference is true, given the time settings, then in your above example, why is it sandbagging ?

Sure, there's sandbagging, but it has to do with how you represent yourself. Adopting the philosophy of "playing your rating" is in most cases not sandbagging.

A 10 year old child taking lessons from a professional may be improving so quickly that her rating lags behind her true strength. This ten year old knows she has a good chance of winning her games at the tournament next month, but I wouldn't call playing her rating sandbagging. While I will likely lose when playing such a child, I accept it, because I think it would be a bad strategy overall to say "anyone under 4 feet tall taking lessons from a pro should self-promote, so as to avoid sandbagging."

On the other hand, my wife played at the Congress this year, and it was her first rated game in nine years. We know she was not 16k, so she entered as 9k, which ended up being about right. Had she entered as 16k, this would have been sandbagging in my opinion, because while she hadn't played an AGA game in 9 years, she had thousands of online games under her belt to gauge her true strength.

Unless she had bacon for breakfast.

No. (and I don't believe you do either)

And the only way totally prove that would be to have separate rating systems for the different time settings. There might be some measurable difference, but not 8 stones. And I don't believe whatever the difference, it would be enough to warrant separate rating systems (but without actual data, we'll never know).

Ed,

Is this you:http://agagd.usgo.org/player/16081/??

If so, it seems you have a 56% win rate at Cotsen Open games, and a 55% win rate in Go Congress US Open games. Are these percentages close because you played below your true rating at Cotsen tournaments, and at your rating at US Congress games?

Yes, lots of data points would be very helpful.

I can only provide one data point, mine; see next post.
At least 2, 3, or even more stones drop from slow to blitz.

Hi mhlepore,

You want to get up close and personal ?
No problem. Very happy to discuss.

Yes, that's me.
Since you're so happy to dig up the records, which is freely available to the public, why don't you go ahead and dig up every one of my rated AGA games (or, as many as are a available). Then, tell us what you can gleam from the data.

As you do the digging, here are some of the questions you may want to answer:

(a) How many rated games can you find ?
(b) Given (a), what would you say about the statistical reliability ?
(c) How many Cotsen rated games can you find ?
(d) Given (c), what would you say about the statistical reliability ?
(e) How many rated US Open games can you find ?
(f) Given (e), what would you say about the statistical reliability ?
(g) How much elapsed time(s) between these rated games ?
(h) Given (g), what would you say about the statistical reliability ?

You asked; now, please do the work.

Sounds like fun, but most of the work is done, and this thread is getting a little too chippy for me. But I'll end by saying I agree with you about the statistical reliability, or lack thereof, in using rated games to draw meaningful conclusions. Which is precisely why if I were a tournament director, I would question a person who says they are 3 stones stronger at longer rated games, or better after the Wednesday day off at the Congress, or whatever, when there is not enough data to take and run with.

Hi mhlepore,

No, most of the work is not done. Not even close.
I would say over 90% of the work is not done -- and answering the questions is only a starting point.

Instead of discussing the issue at hand, you happily bring up some data,
some personal data -- that even you agree is statistically unreliable --
and without any further actual investigation, throw up some accusatory questions
that appear to me awfully like an ad hominem.

May I refresh your memory: Forum rules, guideline #1.

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EDIT: After the above, I received a private message from mhlepore.
And I replied back. The tone, so far, is very friendly in the 2 private messages.

Please move along; Nothing to see here.