He does it to win virtual trophies? That's a first.
P.S. are there are prizes with monetary value I'm not aware of?
Beware of Bandits
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I'd like an answer to the last question too - Are there any contests, on or off-line, that use chess.com's rating as an entry qualification, and has a prize with real value?
(Apologies for naming the bandit - I didn't know about ticket system)
Right in "off-line" (OTB) tournaments there's at least monetary incentive to sandbag. I highly doubt any OTB tournaments would use chess.com's ratings though.
joey you're right that big tourneys are expensive but it's not that bad compared to other hobbies and is a nice change from playing against the same people every week in your local club.
Just doing some searching, and I found this. Not accusing anyone, but I've got a sneaking feeling that I've seen it happening. I'm an admitedly weak player. I was a 1600-1800 when I played all the time, but put down the game for over 10 years, and would be lucky to rate 1200 now.
Anyone who plays for a while gets a pretty good idea of what their level is and tries to raise it. But I know for a fact there are people getting into lowbie tournies who are clearly FAR beyond the level they're playing in. Why would they do it? Cheap thrills? I mean what I've seen is people who aren't good enough to go around bragging about being a strong player, but good enough to mop a tourney of lowbies easily.
All you have to do is look at their history. Tell tales are playing the same individual over and over and repeatedly losing, Then entering a tournie that 200-400 points bellow their level. They'll get a huge chunk of that rating back in the tourney.... just playing pick up game will return them to normal. Griefing in video games is a common practice, and the fact that there is no monetary gain doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Some people are just dicks.
I tried writing to an admin about this, but they only accept messages from friends. I didn't want to write about an individual publicly, but actually, I don't care about this guy. Here is what I tried to send to admin:
"This chap [Name Removed by Mod] was winning every game easily against me, but would then resign instead of finishing off the game. He is clearly a bandit, lowering his rating artificially, so as to compete (and win) at a lower grading! It is unfair on the rest of us, as he is not on our grade, yet he gets all the trophies! Please issue a warning to him, and considering removing all his ill-gotten gains. Thank-you.
Member in question: [Name Removed by Mod]
Is this rife? Is there a policy against it?
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