Bands and Ratings

I know, I know, it's been raised so many times, and still it doesn't work properly. Constant complaints of sandbagging, people playing "king-of-the-kids" in low level banded tournaments, others complaining that because they once had a run of luck they can't get into their "real" banding.

We bottom-feeders (under 1200) make up more than half the population of the site, yet when bandings come out the lowest band is 0-1150. Tournaments in there are always filled first, so there are usually no tourneys on offer, even though there is a page full of tiny bandings for other people. 900s have no chance because there are usually enough 1200+ people to kick them out in the first round. Yet if you're above 1150, you're usually stuck with the same dozen opponents in every tourney you play, because those bands are just too small.

Wherever I've gone to the trouble of looking at opponent profiles, I've come to the conclusion that their real rating is somewhere between the Tournament Entry Rating and Average Rating last 5 years.

I'd like to propose that access to banded tourneys be restricted to those players whose TER and AR5 both fit within say 100 points of the band on offer. Combine this with wider bands, at least 100 points wide. This would give people a chance to get out of their present tournament playing rut and encounter different playing styles.

Originally posted by Kewpie
I know, I know, it's been raised so many times, and still it doesn't work properly. Constant complaints of sandbagging, people playing "king-of-the-kids" in low level banded tournaments, others complaining that because they once had a run of luck they can't get into their "real" banding.

We bottom-feeders (under 1200) make up more than half the population ...[text shortened]... hance to get out of their present tournament playing rut and encounter different playing styles.

Originally posted by Kewpie
I know, I know, it's been raised so many times, and still it doesn't work properly. Constant complaints of sandbagging, people playing "king-of-the-kids" in low level banded tournaments, others complaining that because they once had a run of luck they can't get into their "real" banding.

We bottom-feeders (under 1200) make up more than half the population ...[text shortened]... hance to get out of their present tournament playing rut and encounter different playing styles.

Perhaps an intermittent floor basis, instead of permanent, as I understand a permanent floor would be problematic.

I think this should be a good compromise.
For example, you have just achieved a TER of 1601.
Instead of having a permanent floor, you have like 3 months or something where you can't enter tournaments with bandings below 1600,
even if your TER slips down.

This would be to discourage people resigning all of their games in a tourney just so they can drop their rating down to instantly join a lower banded one, like someone just did in my group, someone who has conveniently won several banded tournaments, probably by practicing the same thing!

😠

I honestly can't see why anyone would actually want to do this. Say I'm a 1600, I'm proud of my rating, I worked hard to get there. Why would I want to be king of the kiddie sandpit and display a 1200 tourney win on my record? Weird.

There is more than just the reason of winning tournaments
Some enter tournaments then resign games to reduce their rating so that they look OK in clan games

Presumably clan leaders know the real playing level of their members and would exclude anyone doing this. Or are you suggesting that some clan leaders are less than honest?

If looks like a duck ETC