Why I quit watching sandbagger series on youtube

[Kirby]

In these kind of series I always thought it is not so much the "fault" of the streamers, but a "feature" of the servers they are playing on. The server only allow you to register at i.e. 3d and forces you to fight your way up to your real strength.

So pairings like this must be common on this servers.

This is a fair point. There are different styles of sandbagging games, as Knotwilg alluded to in the OP. He named a few: "basics", "ranking up", and "overexplaining".

Someone who is "ranking up" on a go server often necessarily needs to start off by playing weaker players. Even on KGS, where there isn't a user supplied starting rank, it's hard to establish your rank. The "basics" and "overexplaining" videos might involve sandbagging for other reasons.

Personally, I am probably mostly annoyed when the sandbagger is weaker than me. It's not a fair assessment, but if they're a stronger player, I feel like I'm learning something. But if they're weaker, it seems kind of lame. Given that go players have all sorts of strength, my personal assessment of annoyance would not apply to a large body of go players.

[Boidhre]

Depends. A game against a perceived rival can prove crushing if it ends up being lopsided. Especially if they're already on a losing streak. And that can certainly have emotional ramifications.

Conversely, on some servers since there's a limit to how high a rank you can declare, you will absolutely expect to face people much stronger than their stated rank once your own rank is above that limit. So on these, above this limit, this kind of series doesn't bother me. At the ranks they're playing it's not at all unusual to get crushed by a stronger player who is just ranking up an account by the only method available (to amateurs). It's why it feels different to me when it's like a 2k on KGS. They can reasonably be expecting to face people +/-1 stone of their rank usually, the only times they feel like they're getting crushed is when someone their rank has improved a lot recently and the rating system hasn't caught up yet but that can't be avoided.

I'm not sure why I'm not as bothered by sandbagging in the former example, just because it happens naturally doesn't mean you should intentionally be doing it but it's a gut feeling thing.

[Boidhre]

To be fair, I do think these tubers read less deeply than they would in even games. But deep reading is just one aspect. There's also move selection, early pruning and like you said positional judgment. And these are hard to unthink.

This is what annoys me most when it's not being flagged. "Play in the big place" without any mention of why the timing is good, why it is the biggest, what moves were consciously pruned etc. It's like if I taught my kids how to solve calculus by just writing the final answer and going "like that!"

[jlt]

On Fox or Tygem you can look at the player's game history. If the winning percentage is close to 100% you know that their strength is much higher than the stated rank, so don't feel bad losing.

[Uberdude]

Interesting change of tack Knotwilg, it wasn't long ago you were extolling the virtues of Dwyrin basics!

Here's my thoughts, with some clarity of the YouTubers I (and others?) am talking about.

Dwyrin (who is about the same strength as me at EGF 4d) has his basics series where he plays SDKs. Does he go down as far as DDKs? I think I've seen 7k.
Ryan Li 1p has "random opening challenge" series playing a random choice of some standard openings like Chinese, Kobayashi and some weirder ones like 6-4s. Starts at Fox 3d.
Yeonwoo 1p has 3d up series on Fox
BadukDoctor had 3d up series on Tygem
I did 5 games as 3d on Fox following LZ gospel for early game and then just commenting normal play.
Yoonyoung 8p did 3d to 9d on Fox or Tygem but I didn't watch.

I don't watch Dwyrin habitually as I find him annoying and he's not stronger than me. I like Ryan's. Yeonwoo live comments not so great (too much banal stream chat), prefer her lectures. BadukDoctor only just started so not decided. I did like his technique of showing variations on a side board in some other live commentary videos. I tend to watch these as background entertainment whilst washing up or eating, rather than giving them my undivided attention. When I watch higher quality videos like Redmond's AlphaGo ones the washing up gets done more slowly.

First a comment as a creator. It's easier to make live commentary videos than lectures which need preparation. So they are lazy content for both creator and viewer. BadukDoctor's challenger lectures were great, but he had the time to prepare those because covid shut his go school.

To Joachim's point about 3d max rank, doesn't apply to Dwyrin stomping kyus, does to the others. If you kept making new 3d accounts to avoid promotion or trying to get perfect 100% win I think that's bad, but otherwise ok per server rules. I even lost my second game at 3d (due to woopsy when far ahead) so I'm not sandbagging as much as the others.

So this also significantly reduces Knotwilg's first criticism about the fraud on the opponent, getting crashed by stronger players grinding through 3d is an expected part of those servers. It doesn't excuse Dwyrin beating kyus on KGS or OGS though.

I do find Yeonwoo's quickness to suspect her opponents of using AI just because they played 20 opening moves without doing something retarded a bit rich. Put yourself in their shoes, aren't you suspiciously strong like AI every game?

My beef with Dwyrin basics is on several angles. First it's the sometimes mocking attitude. A bad example to impressionable beginners. Then it's the overconfidence in his own analysis at I can often identify things he says which are wrong. And this isn't wrong as acceptable simplifications for teaching purposes. It's "haha, what s noob, that move sucks, I just answer here and it's good for me" but their move didn't suck but his did. It could be strong pros would think the same about the others I like but aren't stronger than, but I don't think so because they have a better attitude and I think less is actually wrong. In my videos I tried to admit there are things I don't know and find difficult. It's more honest but probably less entertaining than overconfidence and funny voices. In dwyrin's defence, his balance of go education and showmanship plus general consistency of output with decent production values is obviously popular and if it brings in loads of casual video-watching 20ks and they improve to 10k with his help that's great, I just hope they 1) don't get a bad attitude and 2) don't get discouraged it's not as easy as it looks because they don't have dan player subconscious to help.

Others have mentioned all the subconscious aspects of strength which are not switched off and I agree this is important. It invalidates the premise of the videos that if only you followed what I articulate you can be strong like me.

[Knotwilg]

Interesting change of tack Knotwilg, it wasn't long ago you were extolling the virtues of Dwyrin basics!

Indeed not. And I think they are still quite valid, even if less so than your own grand theme of LZ's opening gospel. It's the attitude that has grown badly on me, including the persistent fraudulous sandbagging, which goes way beyond the inevitable ranking up the server of your choice. I can actually appreciate the bantering voices and the showmanship but not the combination of pointing out stupid opponent moves which are not that bad while lauding his own basic-moves-not-requiring-reading which are actually not that good. What I like least is the bad advice, explicit or subliminal, that reading is overrated.

BadukDoctor is obviously stronger and also much more friendly to his unsuspecting opponents, but unsuspecting they still are and he's gotten in the same paradox of hoping his opponent is not using AI while being too strong for his rank himself. Inevitable as that may be when ranking up, lamenting the detrimental effect of fraud on your scheme, while being indifferent to the casual dent in the opponent's curve, and putting that on display, isn't very nice. Just quietly rank up to where you should be, maxing bots in the process, and come back on youtube when you are what you should be. Now Badukdoctor's lessons are great and he doesn't spread myth on how to improve: reading is important.

Same for Yeongwoo who's somewhere in between dwyrin's showmanship and Badukdoctor's more composed attitude. Good lectures, somewhat "rich" as you say on calling potential AI usage.

All of them are doing me a bigger service with their lectures - but I understand that if live games are both easier to engineer and more popular, this is what you go for as a semi-pro-tuber. That's why I call onto viewers to discourage them - but hey, who am I to decide what's valuable.

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

[Kirby]

Inevitable as that may be when ranking up, lamenting the detrimental effect of fraud on your scheme, while being indifferent to the casual dent in the opponent's curve, and putting that on display, isn't very nice. Just quietly rank up to where you should be, maxing bots in the process, and come back on youtube when you are what you should be.

The one bit that I don't quite follow is why it makes a difference if you are recording the rank up process. Either way you'd be putting a casual dent in the opponent's curve; it's just a matter of whether or not others are watching while you do it. Do you mean that advertising the wins isn't kind?

[Uberdude]

Let's give BadukDoctor's Challenger Moves series some clicks/likes, a great collection of more advanced techniques for dan players: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... Jv2lPwrN7J

[tapir]

I never got into this type of Go content, but I always thought: It wouldn't cost anything to tell the opponents "I am X dan in this system, do you fancy a teaching game without handicap. It will be shown on youtube on this channel..." and take it from there.

[CDavis7M]

I never got into this type of Go content, but I always thought: It wouldn't cost anything to tell the opponents "I am X dan in this system, do you fancy a teaching game without handicap. It will be shown on youtube on this channel..." and take it from there.

But that would involve finding someone that speaks the same language and then spending time to review the game, which is apparently too much effort.

[RobertJasiek]

Reading this thread to learn about sandbag teaching surprises me. When I teach by showing mistakes in my games, I try to approach 50% each for my opponents' / my mistakes because everybody's mistakes are important and, on average, both players make roughly 50% of the mistakes. Likewise, for good play. Other mistakes-related teaching exhibits those of a) professional players, b) kyu players to explain their different kinds of mistakes or c) mistakes understood by applying correct theoy.

Mistakes of kyu players occur in their even games or in teaching games. I think that in both types of games the kyus' mistakes are similar. Therefore, mistakes from teaching games can also be used for later explanations. However, when doing so, sandbagging need not occur. Not even, if one shows the development of consequences of particular mistakes of a kyu player in one teaching game. In fact, such is a valid aspect of teaching.

What then is sandbagging teaching? Playing a much weaker opponent, pretending him to have been of equal rank, then demonstrated one's extremely easy win without any effortful thinking?

[Knotwilg]

Mistakes of kyu players occur in their even games or in teaching games. I think that in both types of games the kyus' mistakes are similar.

This is where at least dwyrin seems to disagree: he states a kyu won't play their "natural" game in a teaching game against a high dan they are conscious about. My argument: they aren't playing their natural game against a high dan when unconscious either. You say they are in both contexts.

What then is sandbagging teaching? Playing a much weaker opponent, pretending him to have been of equal rank, then demonstrated one's extremely easy win without any effortful thinking?

Quite so. And propagating the idea that effortful thinking is not necessary to perform at shodan level in the process.

[Boidhre]

I think if you tell someone it's a teaching game and that you're recording it for youtube or that they're live on Twitch it probably would affect the play of many or most people. Just as a hunch. Whether this matters or not I'm not sure.

[tapir]

I think if you tell someone it's a teaching game and that you're recording it for youtube or that they're live on Twitch it probably would affect the play of many or most people. Just as a hunch. Whether this matters or not I'm not sure.

I had to play a (serious league) game against a much stronger player just last week (EGF 4dan). I knew I had very little chance going in, but well tried my best, learned something both from the game and the review and case closed. Now, I would not have appreciated him claiming to be my level and destroy me "without even reading" and then produce a bleeping youtube video mocking me.

If you are willing to discuss your own mistakes as well, there is no reason whatsoever to play in permanent sandbagger mode. It would require a different persona than the "crush the noobz (for educational purposes, only )", though.

[Boidhre]

I had to play a (serious league) game against a much stronger player just last week (EGF 4dan). I knew I had very little chance going in, but well tried my best, learned something both from the game and the review and case closed. Now, I would not have appreciated him claiming to be my level and destroy me "without even reading" and then produce a bleeping youtube video mocking me.

If you are willing to discuss your own mistakes as well, there is no reason whatsoever to play in permanent sandbagger mode. It would require a different persona than the "crush the noobz (for educational purposes, only )", though.

Yeah, I'm kind of assuming any video will be of the gentler instructive kind rather than the "going into a beginner language class and mocking people's accents" approach that some seem to favour.