psychological profile of a sandbagger

[Uberdude]

You armchair psychologists would probably call me a sandbagger as I have some accounts a lot weaker than my peak strength. This can be due to:
- Not concentrating and playing crap
- Trying to have fun instead of trying to win
- Losing on time a lot
- Disconnects and auto-forfeits
- Playing on my phone and missclicking a lot, and resigning when they don't give undo (even if I might still be able to win but don't feel like continuing)
- Resigning because I have something more important to do like get out of bed and go to work.

And not because mommy didn't say well done when I built a cool sandcastle aged 6.

So be careful how much you assume about your opponent's situation and motivations.

[Abyssinica]

There's no reason to enforce your version of what's "right" on someone else.
Maybe YOU'RE the one who is wrong.

Hi Abyssinica, could you elaborate or clarify what you mean:
(a) Do you mean "in general," "under any and all circumstances" ?
(b) Or do you mean only under certain situations ?
(c) If you mean (b), then which are those certain situations ?

I'm just saying that it's a bit hyppocritical to be stating that they might not know what is right when the definition of what's right varies from person to person and that you're acting as if your version of what's right is the only version out there. Saying someone doesn't know what they're doing is not right doesn't have any weight because there is no one right.

[peti29]

I hate sandbaggers for a number of reasons.
- First of all it destroys my self confidence.
- When they write insulting comments atop of sandbagging it makes me angry.
- I really don't like when sandbaggers take handycap stones!
- They make it really hard for genuine '?' ranked players to solidify their rank.
- A fairly easy telling sign is that they greet with 'enjoy' or 'have fun' instead of 'good game' in the beginning.

[tentano]

Come to think of it, I've had it happen that people accused me of sandbagging because I (accidentally!) played a few very strong moves which they could not answer.

I just ignore it as sore loser syndrome, but there's definitely a subset of players who are a little overly paranoid about sandbaggers.

[leichtloeslich]

When I was still improving rapidly, much faster than most online rating systems could keep up with, I usually had a few accounts at any time that were about 5 stones (or more) weaker than my strongest (accurately rated) accounts. Especially on IGS, as their system takes so long to catch up.

On days when I was feeling particularly tired, I would wallow in cowardice and play on these accounts, telling myself "If I played on my main account today, I would just get butchered, so what'd be the point?"
It wasn't meanness, but rather fear of losing badly on my other accounts which drove me to do it. I don't mind losing if I played at my best, but I do mind losing if it's because of stupid blunders I'd never have committed with a clear head.
Playing on these weaker accounts and knowing I considerately outranked my opponents despite my weariness, I tried to play a lot of honte moves and win without the need for a devastating tactical knockout.

One evening on IGS in one of these games I played someone with a curious handle, "bunny125" or something along those lines.
Having just about destroyed him (at that time I thought it was a "him") because he had created weak groups all over the place, he suddenly stopped moving.

I was already used to that: If one of my opponents would get beating very badly (this is also true for my main accounts) they would often just let the game time out instead of resigning. I usually just do tsumego in the time the clock runs down.
And so I didn't think anything of it.

If that was the end of the story, I wouldn't have bothered posting. However, two years later..

Due to a job-change I moved to another city, whose go-club I would soon be a regular at. The mood there was sometimes a bit downcast, something suppressing was hanging in the air, yet noone confided in me and everytime I would steer the conversation towards these lingering clouds that seemed to be weighing down on everyone, I would just reap silent stares and gloomy faces avoiding my eyes.
Eventually I got around to befriending a guy, Johan, in the club, in fact, more than befriend him: I fell in love.

At first oblivious to it, I caught myself daydreaming about him at work, and my girlfriend at that time grew suspicious of me, though I kept reassuring her that, and I was feeling entirely truthful, I wasn't seeing anybody.
But I also knew she was right, I did stop loving her, yet I was in love.

With my relationship going rapidly downhill, I took even more comfort in going to the go-club at Wednesdays, and sometimes would even arrange to meet Johan privately to play on his floor-goban at his place. At this point I was already conscious of my desires towards him, but couldn't fathom ever openly talking about them to anyone, certainly not to him.

One Saturday I convinced him to stay home and play go with me instead of going to the movies, and, completely alone, we played a few games and joked around light-heartedly about trivial matters, as we would often do.
But then there was a change in atmosphere; a lump in the throat, a knot in my stomach, I was suddenly struck mute and helplessly cast embarressed glances around his dorm, while he was clearing the goban.
After he finished putting the stones away, he didn't say anything for quite a while and we just sat in silence, avoiding each other's eyes.
My heart pounding and feeling a panic surge up in me, desperate to break the silence somehow, I blurted out a comment about that depressing atmosphere in the go-club that I had noticed when I first moved to the city.
Without raising his head, almost inaudible, he said it was his sister; she used to come to the club and died at the age of 10, two and a half years ago.
Dumbstruck by this unexpected confession, the silence felt even more repressing, but a moment later he resumed:

Luisa, that was her name, was being bullied at school by a gang of vicious little boys on whose ringleader, to top it off, she had a terrible crush.
She was beautiful and had friends at school that sympathized with her situation, but she would often just fall silent and stare vacantly into the air at home, where the world wasn't perfect either: her mother had frequent visits to the hospital because of psychotic episodes. Luisa was left in the dark about what was happening with her mother, but she had some ideas, and it was obvious that she wasn't coping too well.
When Johan left home and went to university, he suggested Luisa should come to the go-club with him sometimes. (Him and Luisa used to be inseperable. From what I can tell, she was quite infatuated with him.)
At the go-club she received a warm welcome: beaming with happiness when playing and being together with her brother, she became a regular, visiting even when Johan couldn't because he was too busy studying.
She had assumed a precocious air around the club and was treated by everyone as their own child. Everyone liked to play her and she loved playing everyone. She improved very quickly and was obviously happy.
But sometimes she would get really upset when she lost. At times she would just brush it off and start a new game, but at other times it seemed to strike an odd note with her and her gleaming smile would be gone for the rest of the day, despite everone's efforts to cheer her up.

At a loss for what to say I asked how strong she was. Johan told me her IGS account, “bunny215”, was at 12kyu at the end.

At this I felt the floor beneath me dropping away, my head spinning, like I'd just been struck with a sledgehammer. My heart began pounding even harder and I got a ringing in my ears.

Johan, still looking down, didn't notice any of that, breathed a deep sigh, and continued in a mechanical manner:
In the summer two years ago, on the morning of May 21st, Luisa went into the attic and found her mother dangling from a wooden beam, electrical chord around her neck.

Having said that, Johan fell silent again. After a pause:

She stopped coming to the club after that and was silent most of the time. She hardly left her room when she was home and her teachers were very worried about her. It was during that time of isolation that she started playing go online.

Johan sighed heavily with blank eyes, finishing his account:
during a lecture on 18th century Russian law, he got a call from his father, hysterical, that Luisa had hung herself the night before.

I felt like I was going to faint, my heart still racing, I mumbled something about having to go to the toilet, struggled to my feet and, not even sure Johan had heard what I said, went towards the bathroom as if drunken.

I locked myself inside, got on all fours and felt like vomiting, but couldn't. My head was swimming, and I tried getting up to look into the mirror: the room was shaking and the pallid grimmace madly peering back at me from the mirror did little to ease my condition.

I stormed out of the toilet and went straight for the door of the flat without saying anything to Johan, who was still sitting in front of the goban with a downcast look, obviously consumed by his own demons and not able to recognize my behaviour as odd.


With things not working out very well in my new job anyways, and feeling a strong urge to get away from the affair with Johan and also from my girlfriend, I left town shortly afterwards.

I have never told anyone about this until today, and if you're reading this, Johan: I am sorry.
And Luisa, I'm sorry, too. I hope you found your mother in heaven.

[Krama]

Let's say I am a 6d (I wish lol) and I decide to "sandbag" a 5 kyu. Why is it sandbagging? Because some rank says I am a 6d and this guy is a 5 kyu? What if I think of myself as a 5 kyu player?

Some people play go to feel the pressure of competition, they play against someone their own level because this is the sport mentality however some people don't like to try hard and play with their brains on 100%.

We are not professionals, we don't earn money by playing thus we play for FUN!

Is it fun for me to use all my brainpower and sweat my ba**s off to play against someone my own strength? Maybe.

But it is more fun for me to play with reading as little as needed, playing on instinct etc. (not trick plays)

So in order to play like that on let's say 5 kyu level you would need to be a high dan player.

It has nothing to do with your childhood Mr. Sigmund, it's simply the way different people perceive fun.

[blackmage]

I think that sandbaggers don't necessarily want to piss anybody off, they just want to win.

I think I sandbagged once or twice when I lost ten games in a row.

Also agree with Abyssinica that morals are a bunch of hooey.

[tentano]

@leichtloeslich: It could be a story like that, sure. It could also be a grown man who can't handle losing on the internet. In any case, it's definitely not your responsibility if someone is unhappy about losing, no matter how intense the unhappiness, no matter how fragile the losing player's state of mind is. It's just a game, and neither player is owed anything.

On the other hand, if you only ever play the alternative account when you're clearly not up to playing at your best, you're not really faking anything. The rank on that account is fairly consistent since you're not deliberately losing games in order to keep it down. Especially on a server like IGS it's hardly strange to find yourself playing people who are underrated, thanks to that slow-as-molasses rating adjustment.

[EdLee]

Saying someone doesn't know what they're doing is not right doesn't have any weight because there is no one right.

If someone thinks it's "right" for him to poke your eye out for no reason at all, you're OK with it, and you let him ? Just want to be clear, are you referring only to this "sandbagging" in Go, or, do you mean there's no right or wrong at all, ever ?

[blackmage]

If nobody sinned we wouldn't have any stories to tell. Poke my eye out if you want.

[CnP]

I think that sandbaggers don't necessarily want to piss anybody off, they just want to win.

yeh - I guess it's fun crushing people and making big kills. sdk's are fair game in my book and can recognise what's going on but doing it to complete beginners is a bit nasty IMO - and I mean making sure you lose 50% of your games to maintain a low rank hiding your true rank and crushing players - not the result of a losing streak or having an account to play Go with after you've had 5 beers. I can't imagine it's much good for the sandbaggers game though long term.

[pitirre]

In my analysis I concentrated on the sandbagger... but his action can affect the other player. Suppose a player is in a slump; feels bad recently about his game and plays with a sandbagger and loses terribly. .. this could crush his confidence and even self esteem .

I like someone saying that they are bullies. Yes, they are.

[Krama]

In my analysis I concentrated on the sandbagger... but his action can affect the other player. Suppose a player is in a slump; feels bad recently about his game and plays with a sandbagger and loses terribly. .. this could crush his confidence and even self esteem .

I like someone saying that they are bullies. Yes, they are.

Where does it state that you must play on your own level? Is it against some kind of go server rules?

As long as the sandbagger is not playing trick moves it doesn't matter. You can play trick moves against someone your own level and win easily if they get tricked all the time so we are obviously not talking about trick moves.

I would be glad to play against some pro who would crush me a lot by using correct moves and shapes. Again I must stress out that I wouldn't like to play against someone stronger (or anyone at that matter) that would only play tricks with me, but as we notice some sandbaggers do play trick moves on beginners but others don't.

If I go and play against a beginner, as long as I am playing the correct moves and shapes the beginner is playing against themselves by playing overplays which I punish corerctly, or by wasting moves allowing me to take big points. Sandbagging is good, as long as they don't trick a weaker player, which is another discussion.

[pitirre]

There is not a divine rule that can force you to play at a certain level... we are discussing here about motivations. What makes a person to be a sandbagger

[snorri]

What about the profile of those who have the irrational belief that there are really that many sandbaggers?