rating manipulation
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Heliocrab
Sep 22, 2025
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#1
In the reporting section of playing during a match, you have the option to report someone for rating manipulation. What exactly is this? Is this the thing where you rematch someone over and over who you beat most of the time to get a lot of rating points? Is this against the rules? Because it appears grandmasters do it a lot as well, looking at their archives.
No, rematches are fine. Rating manipulation means intentionally losing games (sandbagging), or winning games (smurfing) when they are under-rated (typically from unethically bringing down your own rating). If you play random pairings, then accept or decline any rematches and it's legal.
Noticed this my self a few times oppenent makes a an apprantly random move three moves later you realise thats how far ahead of you they are. This is not the play style of a level 600! I guess some people just cant handle loosing makes the patheitic in my book but I just learn from the game and laugh at them because they will never get any better!
Rating manipulation is basically another name for sandbagging, which refers to intentionally losing games to artificially lower your rating so you will get paired against players who are at a much lower skill level than you are. This is most commonly used to get into tournaments where only players below a certain rating are allowed, allowing the sandbagger to win very easily.
Rematching someone over and over so they can lose on purpose to increase your Elo is another form of rating manipulation, but it's less common because even though your rating will increase, your skill level will not.
Another manipulation method is "smurfing," where someone simply makes a new account instead of ruining the rating on their normal account to get paired against noobs.
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