26 Dec '18 12:17>
There is a very strong player on this site who appears to be suppressing their rating by deliberately losing to lower ranked players. To what end I have no idea, but it must be annoying for the higher rated players that fall prey and I don’t think it’s good for the site to have this sort of thing go unchallenged.
The player in question has been ranked as high as 2300, but, since August, their rating has been all over the place and has dipped below 1000 on more than one occasion before climbing back up again. I have not played them myself. The reason I noticed the dramatic ratings fluctuations is because the player is very active and regularly has multiple games appearing on the open invite list.
Now I realise there are legitimate explanations for why a player’s rating may suddenly dip. However, if you look at the player’s game history since late August, it is pretty obvious that they are systematically losing to lower ranked players, while at the same time comfortably beating more highly rated players. Furthermore, the player regularly specifies a low rating threshold on their open invites (e.g. < 900) and it’s hard to see a good reason why such a quality player would be choosing to do this. Also, they have never lost by timeout.
What’s been going on is pretty blatant and I can’t be the only one who has noticed. Therefore, I’m a bit surprised it’s been allowed to continue for so long. I’m not suggesting that the player should be banned because:
- they are a paying subscriber (which is more than can be said for me!)
- they are active and of good quality, so a valuable addition to the player base
- deliberately losing does not seem to be explicitly prohibited by the ToS, although I think it probably should be
However, I do think it is undesirable behaviour and it would be good if the site admins could have a quiet word and get them to cut it out. What does everyone else think?
The player in question has been ranked as high as 2300, but, since August, their rating has been all over the place and has dipped below 1000 on more than one occasion before climbing back up again. I have not played them myself. The reason I noticed the dramatic ratings fluctuations is because the player is very active and regularly has multiple games appearing on the open invite list.
Now I realise there are legitimate explanations for why a player’s rating may suddenly dip. However, if you look at the player’s game history since late August, it is pretty obvious that they are systematically losing to lower ranked players, while at the same time comfortably beating more highly rated players. Furthermore, the player regularly specifies a low rating threshold on their open invites (e.g. < 900) and it’s hard to see a good reason why such a quality player would be choosing to do this. Also, they have never lost by timeout.
What’s been going on is pretty blatant and I can’t be the only one who has noticed. Therefore, I’m a bit surprised it’s been allowed to continue for so long. I’m not suggesting that the player should be banned because:
- they are a paying subscriber (which is more than can be said for me!)
- they are active and of good quality, so a valuable addition to the player base
- deliberately losing does not seem to be explicitly prohibited by the ToS, although I think it probably should be
However, I do think it is undesirable behaviour and it would be good if the site admins could have a quiet word and get them to cut it out. What does everyone else think?