Sandbagging

[Kirby]

3.) Trying to be humble: If I am playing with people that I know personally, I do not wish to specify my rank as what I think it really is, because I am afraid that, if I do not live up to my rank, I will be perceived as arrogant. I do not want to be arrogant, so I try to be conservative when indicating my rank to people I know in real life.

I think that is actually fear, not humility. "Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less." "Thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools."

I agree that what I described includes fear. After all, I even use the word "afraid" in the explanation (I am afraid that...).

But when I google "define:humble", this is the definition I get:

hum·ble/ˈhəmbəl/
Adjective: Having or showing a modest or low estimate of one's own importance.
Verb: Lower (someone) in dignity or importance: "I knew he had humbled himself to ask for my help".

I would say that the action I described is one in which I attempt to show a "modest or low estimate" of my own rank. The reason I do this is because of fear. But I feel that this can still be described as being humble.

[daniel_the_smith]

hum·ble/ˈhəmbəl/
Adjective: Having or showing a modest or low estimate of one's own importance.

I would say that the action I described is one in which I attempt to show a "modest or low estimate" of my own rank.

I think that deliberately understating your rank for fear you won't live up to it actually shows that you attach a fair amount of importance to your rank. I think the most humble thing to do is state your rank exactly as an impartial observer would. Selling yourself short in the name of humility does neither you nor those around you any favors. Whatever humility is, I don't believe it involves having, or giving to others, an inaccurate representation of yourself.

[Kirby]

...

I think that deliberately understating your rank for fear you won't live up to it actually shows that you attach a fair amount of importance to your rank.

Yes, that's probably true. I feel that it's one of the only indicators I have for how good I am at the game.

In other things in life, like at my job, for example, people can talk themselves up or brag about some obscure knowledge that they might have. I don't put much value into this type of stuff.

In go, your rank at least gives you a number that lets you know, objectively, how well you are doing. That said, I do not believe I can know with certainty what my rank actually is.

I think the most humble thing to do is state your rank exactly as an impartial observer would. Selling yourself short in the name of humility does neither you nor those around you any favors. Whatever humility is, I don't believe it involves having, or giving to others, an inaccurate representation of yourself.

I suppose, but I do not have an accurate representation of myself that I can trust. I know the rank that some go servers have given me, and I know the ranks of some people that I've beaten and lost to.

But at best, I can just think of myself within some range of ability.

At the end of the game, I would rather have people think that I was being modest with my rank, and that I was really stronger than I had said than the other way around.

If it's the other thing around, then I'm just a talker or a bragger. I feel it is better if the moves you make brag for you than the words that you speak.

[daniel_the_smith]

But at best, I can just think of myself within some range of ability.

At the end of the game, I would rather have people think that I was being modest with my rank, and that I was really stronger than I had said than the other way around.

If it's the other thing around, then I'm just a talker or a bragger. I feel it is better if the moves you make brag for you than the words that you speak.

Fair enough.

I think if I were Helel I'd say that it's just another way of bragging-- lower people's expectations and then kill their groups.

[karaklis]

Here in Germany you can assign any rank to yourself. That has led to the situation that many players are much weaker than their suggested rank is according to the EGF rating. Comparing to that sandbagging is quite rare. That's why I think that Kirby's approach is valid, that you have to earn your rank by playing rather than upgrading your rank by yourself. There are exceptions of course, e.g. when you're in the DDK ranges and improving fast. But if you're a regular tournament player (at least) in the SDK ranges, then it is better to get your rank from actual play.

[hyperpape]

There is a player, mid kyu, who would play games against players who were 3-6 stones weaker than him without handicap. He would win most of those games and both players would have very small effect in their ranking. When he lost, however, the other player could get big enough boost to jump up in ranking.

I guess the guy likes winning, doesn't care about playing against stronger players and all the while provides opportunity for those players who feel they are underranked. Can we call this honest sandbagging?

This is not sandbagging. The players know what they're getting and the rating system does too.

[Li Kao]

Here in Germany you can assign any rank to yourself. That has led to the situation that many players are much weaker than their suggested rank is according to the EGF rating. Comparing to that sandbagging is quite rare. That's why I think that Kirby's approach is valid, that you have to earn your rank by playing rather than upgrading your rank by yourself. There are exceptions of course, e.g. when you're in the DDK ranges and improving fast. But if you're a regular tournament player (at least) in the SDK ranges, then it is better to get your rank from actual play.

That wasn't my impression. I felt that the self ranking worked pretty well. I for example report in with one or two stones below my KGS rank.
The only significant ranking problem I saw on my last tournament was a player who played his last game of go several years back in China, and people didn't know how to convert that to an EGF rank.
But I'd say the problem here is that the math behind the EGF ranking system sucks. IMO if I report a new rank when at a tournament that shouldn't reset my EGF rank, but my results from playing stronger players should improve me quickly without hurting them too much. I'd love to see EGF use WHR instead of ELO. ELO just doesn't work on sparse data sets.

[karaklis]

I agree with you that generally the self ranking generally works pretty well. What I meant was that overranking occurs much more frequently than underranking/sandbagging. I checked the EGF stats of my opponents who have been playing regularly on tournaments for several years or who have played several times in the last months, and from a total of 33 players 27 were ranked fine, five were overranked, and only one was underranked (i.e. self-ranking and rank from rating differ by at least two ranks/200 pts), and this one was previously overranked, so it might just have been a correction that the EGF system doesn't approve of.

I also agree with you that the EGF rating/ranking system kind of sucks (I just remember the Dutch report that Herman Hiddema has mentioned), but at least for regular players it gives a quite good approximation of playing strength.

[Hushfield]

Since I mainly play on KGS, and have recently started playing on IGS and Tygem as well, I was somwhat at a loss as to what rank I should be, as some of the rank information on http://senseis.xmp.net/?RankWorldwideComparison is pretty vague. Well, for Tygem, definitely. I started at a rank that I thought was somewhat below my actual level, because I wanted to experience the difference in strength/ranks for the different servers. After an initial period of 'sandbagging', the situation is normalizing. I guess it's what Kirby described as earning your rank. Playing against players which are weaker than you is not all that fun, because they usually can't assess the game situation very accurately, and play on long after the point of no return. I spent most of those games as a 'sandbagger' wishing my opponent would just resign and be done with it. It wasn't fun at all. I guess the most fun games are playing someone slightly stronger than yourself. Concerning the psychology of sandbagging, I think Tchan stated some excellent reasons as to why one might sandbag.

[swatters]

Since I mainly play on KGS, and have recently started playing on IGS and Tygem as well, I was somwhat at a loss as to what rank I should be, as some of the rank information on http://senseis.xmp.net/?RankWorldwideComparison is pretty vague. Well, for Tygem, definitely. I started at a rank that I thought was somewhat below my actual level, because I wanted to experience the difference in strength/ranks for the different servers. After an initial period of 'sandbagging', the situation is normalizing. I guess it's what Kirby described as earning your rank. Playing against players which are weaker than you is not all that fun, because they usually can't assess the game situation very accurately, and play on long after the point of no return. I spent most of those games as a 'sandbagger' wishing my opponent would just resign and be done with it. It wasn't fun at all. I guess the most fun games are playing someone slightly stronger than yourself. Concerning the psychology of sandbagging, I think Tchan stated some excellent reasons as to why one might sandbag.

I'm a beginner who has played after the point of no return and I think it's natural (I'm not implying that you don't). Maybe the "moral" of your story is that players should err on the side of overstating their strength somewhat when having to estimate rank. This way they don't have to play games that are "not all that fun" while their rating normalizes.

I have to disagree about Tchan's reasons for sandbagging. They seem to just be rationalizations for unsportsmanlike behavior. I say this from past experience exhibiting unsportsmanlike behavior and rationalizing it.

*Edit:

Some perhaps want to give lower ranks a taste of what it feels like to fight against someone strong

If someone is really doing this once-in-a-while it's probably helpful but if it is their M.O. isn't it just sandbagging in the unsportsmanlike sense?

[LokBuddha]

The best example of sandbagging can be seen in Hikaru no Go. Waya who is an insei playing as zelda on the net one day came online to sandbag, only to be sandbagged by Sai

[BlindGroup]

I played a game today on IGS and was very quickly obliterated. Oddly though, once the outcome of the game was obvious even to me, my opponent forfeited. Looking at the player's rank history (below), I thought of all of the threads on this site about sandbagging. What do people think? I have no idea what this player's actual rank is but it's hard for me to see how this could occur without intentionally manipulating his rank.

I get that all of us can be slightly under ranked at various times -- playing while sick, distracted, on a mobile device, having a beer... -- but this seems extreme.

[yoyoma]

Obviously sandbagging.

[tapir]

Here in Germany you can assign any rank to yourself. That has led to the situation that many players are much weaker than their suggested rank is according to the EGF rating. Comparing to that sandbagging is quite rare. That's why I think that Kirby's approach is valid, that you have to earn your rank by playing rather than upgrading your rank by yourself. There are exceptions of course, e.g. when you're in the DDK ranges and improving fast. But if you're a regular tournament player (at least) in the SDK ranges, then it is better to get your rank from actual play.

Using your rating is a form of sandbagging.

[karaklis]

Using your rating is a form of sandbagging.

What do you mean by that? And what is the connection to my >5 year old posting that you quote? Please elaborate.