Rating increase and banded tournaments

Originally posted by cambridgeian
Howabout this guy, Adram ?

User 261696

prime example of why the banded tournaments ratings are flawed ...

guy enters low-rated tourney's and wins, and at same time enters others and times out loads of games, to enable him to enter new lower banded toutneys ... and so on ...

basically we have a guy who is highest rated at 1850, winning ...[text shortened]... that tournament rating can't drop to below, say, 100 below 'HIGHEST EVER' rating the better

interesting threadsomeone alerted me to.

i am this user, i thought i would post

many years ago i played chess a lot and was fairly good, but i hadnt played in ages before i joined this site in july 2006. i was out of practice but i knew i would be a decent played again

when i signed up i did resign some games, i think 3 or 4, to have a low rating after my few provisional games. i was really keen and joined TONS of tournaments at that point. it is because of those that i have won so many tournaments.

i have not constantly abused the system by resigning tons of games constantly. i have had a high rating at one point, but that is because i had a good winning streak at one point due to playing against too many lower ranked opponents. i would say a rating of 1550 or so would be my "true" rating.

my recent timeouts and resigned games havent been because i wanted to drop my rating, they have simply been because of christmas and other recent committments that have meant i dont have enough time for 80 odd games of chess at a time.

i can certainly understand all of that looking dodgy, and i guess it is my own fault because i came out of provisional games rated lower than i should have been, which let me join so many low-rated tournaments.

if an admin wants to reset my tournament wins, thats fine with me

Since many of the duals seem to last forever I do not see this as an issue. Why should I feel bad for getting better?

My rating has risen up to the 1600 range. And I will not feel bad for a second if I win some 1300-1400 banded tournament. I have gotten better over the last year. Everyone should hope to improve over time.

Stay in the tournaments.

As for sandbagging...there are a few out there (not me) that will resign all remaining games once eliminated. A good way of keeping the rating down..and i can see there point..why bother with games that are pointless. Ratings are not critical to all those on the site. The sad thing about doing so is that it can undo somebody else's chances..but 'hey-ho'

Here's another one:

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/1218/charthu1.gif

He earns a 1700 rating, times out a bunch of games, and now qualifies for a 1099 and below tournament. There should be a link to a player's all-time high, or maybe a longer (200 or 300 day) evaluation window.

Greetings,

I understand the concern. Let me first state that I'm USCF 1600+ and I've been both at giving (when I started playing serious chess and turned out to be relatively better than most of my senior club players) and at the receiving end when I moved to the bigger cities and hit the tournament circuit and faced a few sandbaggers who screwed my chances of winning class prizes like U1600 etc.

While the former is acceptable, given that both USCF and redhotpawn use a "provisional rating" system to make sure "shooting stars" don't steamroll players on a slower growth pace, the latter a.k.a sandbagging is not.

So yeah, I know the behavior of a sandbagger and I do not deny that I exhibit it based on that cute waterfall rating graph that somebody just posted.

Defend myself? I have only this.

I had to leave the country for urgent personal reasons in the month of august-september and did not have access to the internet. I only signed up to redhotpawn a few months earlier and was not aware of any vacation/away message feature nor did I lack the courtesy to inform my opponents or resign all my games. I got back. Months later, I start playing again.

If I was being a jerk, I'm apparently a methodical one who waits for 6 months before I'm done timing out my games so that I can lust for the pleasure of beating up on people at online chess again.

So believe that if you want. I could be lying and maybe I just sit at home getting my kicks out of scalping players who are much lower than my playing strength. You decide, based on the facts.

If you want to correct a system that allows people to sandbag, then force one's rating back to provisional status in the event of extended rating-drop VIA TIMEOUT, such that the effect on the opponents in the future is minimized until the "suspect" has climbed back to his rating strength (Which would be rapid, if he was any good ...)

Enjoy the chess, people.

Thanks,
Shiv

I read the earlier posts...I like the idea of "tournament entry rating" not being able to drop down, kind of like the USCF's rating "FLOOR" system.

I also second being able to query the person's all time rating stats a whole lot easier.

I apologize for the unfair games that I've played, but suffice it to say that I'm only involved in open tournaments (not banded) and will continue until my rating gets back to what it was.

Is anything going to be done about this? Because the way I see it there is no point in having banded tournaments if people are dropping ratings to enter.

It cant just be a coincidence either because it seems to be in every tournament I enter at the moment.

Originally posted by Virtue76
Is anything going to be done about this? Because the way I see it there is no point in having banded tournaments if people are dropping ratings to enter.

It cant just be a coincidence either because it seems to be in every tournament I enter at the moment.

Did you already try to message him?

I did for one person in the 1000-1100 banded duels who was 1700+

Originally posted by Ponderable
Did you already try to message him?

I did for one person in the 1000-1100 banded duels who was 1700+

Message who?

I think site admin should sort it out. To me its similar to people using programmes to cheat, they are beating novices just to have a tournament victory against their name. Pretty sad if you ask me.

Message the person in question. I do that sometimes.

And yes I would rather that Admins sort this out by brute force. If you want to have that you should make a suggestion in the site suggestion forum.

Originally posted by Ponderable
Message the person in question. I do that sometimes.

And yes I would rather that Admins sort this out by brute force. If you want to have that you should make a suggestion in the site suggestion forum.

Its more than one person. I will post on site ideas.

Yea virtue, I'm sorry about the tournament we are in, I am probably rated... 1250 to 1300 but I really didn't want to sit out the hammershlag tournament, because it looked so interesting, I've never seen an opening so crazy before. It is the only banded tournament I'm in (if they had made it open I would still be playing in it).

Originally posted by RussellR
my recent timeouts and resigned games havent been because i wanted to drop my rating, they have simply been because of christmas and other recent committments that have meant i dont have enough time for 80 odd games of chess at a time.

i can certainly understand all of that looking dodgy, and i guess it is my own fault because i came out of provisional games rated lower than i should have been, which let me join so many low-rated tournaments.

Just play fewer games and keep your rating at/around the level it should be 😛

If you know you are a 1500+ rated player why bother entering lower rated banded tournaments when your rating bottoms out? 😕

There are plenty of open tournaments available to stop you beating up on the genione lower raters, following a timeout drop in ratings.

Originally posted by adramforall
If you know you are a 1500+ rated player why bother entering lower rated banded tournaments when your rating bottoms out? 😕

There are plenty of open tournaments available to stop you beating up on the genione lower raters, following a timeout drop in ratings.

You may want to do a bit more investigation before airing your accusations.

A quick look at RR's tournament wins shows that they ALL come from when he first joined the site, and not as a result of his frequent loss in ratings.

As he explained above. 😕

D

I have the same issue as a few of you, my rating has improved due to the fact I did not play on the site for months so my rating dropped and when I camer back I entered a few tournaments and have now improved making me look like a sandbagger.

My arguement is that there is not actually that much skill level difference between a 1200 rated player and someone up to 1500 - the only difference tends to be making mistakes due to rushing moves or lack of concentration.

As you will see I have lost to players in the 1200's and alot of the lower rated players are better then there ratings suggest.

It frustrates me just the same that if I enter a 1500 banded tournament I will basicy be playing 1600 - 1800 rated players and even though I have a current rating over 1500 I have not actually beaten many if any 1500 rated player EVER.

So this is just as unfair for us as it is for you all.

Personally I think when I player does well in a tournament they should be handicapped like they do in horse racing to even the chances for other players in the tournament.

They could do this by restricting an amount of time a player who has won a tournament say at 1200-1300 can have until they can enter the same said banded tourament level again - regardless of there past/previous ratings

But as it stands now the current system is a complete joke and I have suffered at the hands of sandbaggers and software/databases user for a long time.