About a week ago, I went to a local tournament and played an opponent rated about 1850-1900 or so. It was the last round and we ended up with a draw. We started talking after the tournament and as it turns out, he's a full time chess teacher.

I don't know why, but he confided a lot of things to me. For example, he told me that he's a "sandbagger" who goes to local tourneys and loses on purpose to bring his rating down so that he can go to big tourneys and win a lot of money.

He mentioned another thing though, that bothered me more. I noticed that during our tournament game, he was a bit annoying. He would walk around and not move when it was his turn, he would put on his ipod and sometimes glare at me, he would eat and then smack his mouth really loudly, etc. I figured that he was just an extremely annoying person by nature, but after our game, he told me he did those things on purpose and to all of his opponents to psych them out and annoy them.

He said that everyone does that type of thing and that I might as well do it too since everyone else does it. Is it true? Do opponents deliberately annoy and psych out their opponents? It was very surprising because he's a chess coach too, so why would he do something that was immoral?

I personally believe that psyching out your opponent and winning that way is NOT real chess. But it doesn't seem fair if other people can exploit that vulnerablity and gain an unfair edge against you. What do you guys think? Thanks.

Im usually too distracted by the position to notice anyone's behavior. If someone annyed me it probably would jsut inspire me to focus more and punish them. (I think my greatest enemy is lack of motivation...)

 The only thing I have noticed which bothered me is if i'm are playing some kid and his parents are watching very intently. Makes me not wanna beat him.

You probably are distracting yourself, you know, trying to figure out how to distract your opponent now that I think about it. Probably its better to just play and not worry about these things of questionable relevance.

Just ignore it.

I was in a tournament where I was playing a guy that did a really bad pawn sac and started trying cheapo tactics. His friend started making weird noises to try and distract me. I just looked at the board the entire time and won.

Then I played the guy next round and demolished his Chigorin defence. It was fun.

I hate playing kids though. If you ever do, get in and get out fast. You don't want to be anywhere near the parents when it's over. Of course if a master beats them then it's ok I guess...

Sandbagging and attempting to win by annoying/intimidating/distracting the opponent are rather disreputable practices.

That's precisely why I am "antisocial" when it comes to playing OTB chess. As long as people like the people you described go to chess clubs, I refuse to join a chess club.

I hate to break it to you, but these types of people go everywhere.

What is scary is that players like these get idolized and teach this nonsense to kids.  It's bad enough that there are coaches endorsing [e4,Bc4,Qh5] as a suitable White opening repertoire for kids these days.

This is one of the reasons our OTB club tends to have players who "only" play within our friendly circles ... It is easier to be a jerk to a total stranger than somebody you'll meet next week at the club.

Though, playing devil's advocate here ....  hasn't gamesmanship gone hand in hand with any "must win at all costs" situation in sports  ... why do we feel chess needs to be immune?   Even the heavy hitting Super GMs (yesterday and present) have indulged in a little "distracting" behavior.