dropping rating on purpose

The best way to combat "sandbagging" is to have a "floor" for players, like USCF does. I think the USCF floor is taken from your best rating and they dont allow your rating to go more than 200 points lower than your best rating. I believe they also round your best rating to the nearest 100 but am not certain of their formula. My floor in the USCF is 2000 for example. A player in the USCF that has been say 2430 at their best would have a floor of 2200.

I agree chrish,  CATLOCK's comment made me howl with laughter.  I wish I was that funny.

Class prizes...that's a whole 'nother bucket of fish. We could talk about that for a few pages.

This wins the thread!

I think the rating floor is the way to go.  There was a player here who had many games going, then lost a bunch of them on time.  He lost about 1000 ratings points too.  He wasn't sandbagging, but it still wasn't right for people to be playing a 900 rated player who was actually around 1900.  The rating should reflect your playing strength.

Sandbagging is just plain dishonest, and if it can be proved (i.e., the player resigns a bunch of games after 5-10 moves in non-losing positions) then the player should be punished.  Or the system should be designed so that sandbagging doesn't pay.

The USCF established floors to combat all the sandbaggers who would lose hundreds of rating points on purpose in hopes of winning a big class prize in something like the World Open. I agree that some 1400 player should not be able to win as much as professional players can, its ridiculous and only encourages people to do such things.

to all those who do drop their rating, where is your honor? to be grouped with me and bash me? to discourage a novice like me? thats the type of thing that would crush my hopes of success in chess and quit before takinga chance to get better. seriuosly, you'd turn me off from a beautiful game.

I'm no statistician but I just think the whole practice of having unrated games distorts the true rating anyway. There is no way to record every single game someone plays, online and OTB, so ratings will always be distorted.

But on the issue of sandbagging, like this thread started on originally, I'd be interested in what the staff has to say about people tanking ratings so they can enter specific tournaments. Is it a violation to even throw games regardless of motive?

 Should class entry feels be used to subsidize the 2200 section? Non-professional right, and there for basically the same reason as the 1600s and the 1200s? Should the 1200s subsidize the 1800 prizes? I am especially thinking of those tournaments that have large entry fees.

I'd like an option where you can opt out of a big prize for a lower EF. It'd probably wreak havok with guaranteed prizes though and lower some turnout. Guess the "gamblers" and sharks might stay away.

It does work to a certain extent. My floor is 2000 so I can NEVER be eligible to win a big prize in the world open by playing in any section under 2000. Ofcourse I could drop my rating a bit and play for the under 2200 money but I could not play for prizes under 2000 unless they change this policy. They do unfreeze ratings I have heard in case of strokes and other medical conditions. To argue against floors simply because they will not eliminate all sandbagging is ridiculous. Its like saying laws against violent crime shouldnt be in place because they do not eliminate all violent crime.

laughing along with you chrish. and tks CATLOCK, some light hearted views are appreciated greatly here.

What is a better solution then?  I take issue with your dismissing a solution as imperfect without proposing a better alternative.  Reb's analogy is spot on.

floors online are completely ridunkulous they can't work because new accounts are only 1 different email address away. may i also remind you that new accounts automatically are eligible for lower level torunaments because they start at 1200. maybe you could supplement the floor plan by adding a minimum of say 25 games on account before that account can enter a tournament. notice i say account, not player. i don't think that a minimum necessarily should be set, but i would like to present the option if nothing else. only fair to evaluate all options, as any chess player knows. 

 another alternative has been presented, that the tournaments should have a prize money which has direct correlation with tier. this would provide an incentive as has already been said. But more than that, floors are almost completely ineffective because as i said before a new 1200 rated account is like 5 minutes away. now a 1600 rated player can bash everyone else in the tier. i would also like to call into question the tier requirements. maybe it would be interesting to have tournaments based on experience and ones purely for recreation and not any prizes.

 Its odd that you seem very concerned that floors will result in people having ratings that do not reflect their real ability/strength and so oppose them for that reason and because you say it wont stop sandbagging. Do you think a sandbagger has a rating that accurately reflects their ability/strength ? Its true you cannot stop people from being people but you can certainly discourage unethical and criminal bahavior in people. I think people caught throwing games on purpose should be blacklisted from rated events for a year or so...... and if caught again after that never allowed to play rated chess again. Why are you concerned about floors resulting in ratings that might not accurately reflect the ability of a player and yet not sandbaggers whose rating also doesnt accurately reflect their ability? It seems very inconsistent reasoning to me.

prob with that neb is that is it hard to accurately judge motives. you cant interview every user on their intents, and if you do you won't get an honest answer. plus, many other things could be at work; a medical condition, or perhaps a hacking of an account, or a new unreliable internet provider. just saying it isnt feasible to moniter all of this. plus, a banned player can always create a new account. i would like to see how this turns out

In my last few posts I am referring to OTB rated play. I am not so concerned with sandbagging on the net because there are no money prizes involved and no big entry fees, etc....

there was no cheating. 

this is the trouble with a rating, I prefer not knowing my opponents strength, that way you don't jump to conclusions and for the record it is cheating, a rating should be a guide (notice that word there) yes a GUIDE to the strength of that player, misrepresenting that with a higher or lower rating is cheating, although why would you want to play ppl below your standard in a tourny is just a mystery 

Reb, I don't think he was condoning sandbagging at all, he was just saying that floors are not necessarily the solution to it, and purely from a statistical point of view. I think he makes a valid point, while floors are one solution, it doesn't mean that they are the most effective or efficient solution. Maybe if instead of saying that the whole floors system in unworkable, you did something unenviable in science, and just tweak it slightly, so that every year when ratings are reviewed, floors are reviewed as well. If a person is within 20 points of their floor for two years running, why not just lower the floor by 50 points? That would solve the problem of ratings not changing over time, but it would also mean that sandbagging would take however long in preparation the space between changes was. So say your floor was 2200 you'd still have to spend 8 years of sandbagging to enter <2000 tourneys. You'd obviously still have the usual procedures for extraordinary circumstances like strokes, etc. but you would have the ability to move the floor around if necessary.