Concerns About Smurfing and Rating Manipulation on Chess.com

Hey everyone! I’ve been noticing a trend on Chess.com where players who seem highly experienced end up with artificially low ratings, either by creating new accounts or intentionally losing games to drop their rating. It’s frustrating to face someone who plays like a 1500+ but shows a rating of 300–500. It can feel unfair and discouraging to newer players (like me).

Someone says, go and get better, but it's hard to accept me being a ~350 which is literally below day one, play a game with a guy that 2,000 live games on pocket, and the worst part, since now I'm fighting them for 30% of my games I will eventually become these guys too, since I'm losing every game against these smurfs and my ELO keep dropping because of them.

Now I have 385 games and this keeping happening.

Is this reportable?

• Generally, if you believe someone is clearly manipulating their rating (for example, sandbagging by intentionally losing games), you can report them. However, just because someone starts a new account and has strong skills doesn’t necessarily mean they’re breaking any rules, it might just be a new account for a returning player.

• If you notice a sudden or suspicious drop from established 1500 down to 300 (or something equally drastic), it’s worth sending a report? 
  
  

Now I'm really don't know what to do, buy a course, get better and then after some study go to 800-1000 and this will not happens anymore, but what about new users? They will quit because there is a 25 years old guy in a 5th Grade Elementary School football team, and the Principal don't take any actions?

I'm sorry that you have to go through these things, if you want help with your games you can msg me, but can you dm me one of the accounts so I can inspect it?

If a player is intentionally lowering their rating to farm wins against lower-rated opponents, you should report them. Chess.com has systems in place to detect and punish sandbagging.

I know it can feel that way. I've been there and have struggled and have thought it's a losing battle - how can I gain elo when it feels like so many are cheating? But looking at your games over the last couple days, I'm not convinced this is happening in a majority of them. I'm not saying it's never happening. With my own games, about 1 in 10 I'm suspicious about. But that still means 9 of the 10 are fair.

Just try to stay positive. If you care about improving and put in the effort, your game will eventually improve. That's the tough part especially as a newer player. And for new users to chess.com - particularly those new to chess, yeah, you brought up some good points. Chess can be brutal when you are starting out, especially if you don't have chess friends or a support structure for improving. I'm just a dumb internet red panda, so I don't know the answer. Maybe if chess.com had some sort of support network of mentors or something. As a 1200ish rated player, I'd sign up to help.

What's the point?

No amount of tinkering with the software here will stop you from throwing your Queen out the window game after game.

A couple of things. Firstly, the maths. If you think that strong players are deliberately throwing games to sandbag their rating low so they can win against weaker players, then the maths tells me that there must be an equal chance of meeting them on the way down as the way up. Yes, you may occasionally lose rating against a really good player who's artificially sunk his rating to 400 so he can win against you, but he had to get there by losing games, so you may also occasionally gain rating from a really good player who instead of taking advantage of your bad play, resigns or does something silly on purpose. Overall, on average, these people don't affect your rating.

Meanwhile, people are complicated. I sometimes play quite well (85% accuracy) but other times I lose pieces stupidly. I dislike winning, it feels uncomfortable to me, so I often offer draws, sometimes even resign if I think the winning position happened by accident and the game has lost interest to me. I am not good at judging whether I have a winning position, so I often find I've resigned in a position I thought I'd lost, when the engine thinks I was substantially ahead. Sometimes I just get depressed and feel like a failure, then I play badly, resign a lot, and drop rating vastly. There are probably others like me. We must look like sandbaggers when we drop 200 points on a series of disasters, and then gain 150 with a series of 85%+ accuracy games and no losses, but it really just reflects our psychological state, not any genuine desire to manipulate the system. I'm sorry if you bump into me in either mode and find it annoying; I genuinely envy those for whom the psychology of winning is easier.

Some times players will tilt off a couple hundred ELO, but then you should benefit from that as much as you get punished by it. But you don't notice it when you benefit from it

What is the real point of sandbagging. Lower your elo to win the next game. What is the point?? To feel better...

Why blame all your losses on "cheating and smurfing opponents" I checked your games and you don't play against any of them, you just play bad

I just posted in my recent topics I've played with at least 7 persons that were banned by cheating... I'm was a 350 at the time, what do you expect? To see amazing games from me
Come on. Cheating is a real problem here at Chess.com.
I'm slowling get better, doing my part, what I expect is that the site make the same and continue to ban unfair persons

The vast majority of players are clean from any form of fair play violation. You should not worry too much.

Let's be honest, you'll never be the likes of Magnus or Hikaru by "smurfing".

I'm fairly new here so take that with a pinch of salt: why lose games to lower your score only so you can play less-skilled players which will up your score? That is a catch-22 and not logical. Except maybe as one person said ... so they feel better?

I run 450-500. Not a good player at all. But I LOVE every game and I win 50% and some I even pull off amazing checkmates! What fun! If someone cheats, I'd report them but I don't fret about it.