English Chess Forum

Chris Goodall wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:21 am

AlanLlewellyn wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:44 am

cheats from the said countries are obviously targetting the icc

So cheaters from the said countries play on ICC (or used to), and clean players from the said countries (plus cheaters from North America) play on chess.com?

You don't think that says more about the quality of the cheat detection at those two sites than about Brazilians, Mexicans and Colombians?

You don't think a reasonable hypothesis would be as follows:
Brazilians, Mexicans and Colombians tend to be LESS experienced at cheating and simply copy all their moves from an engine, which is easy to spot, but North Americans are sophisticated cheaters who take care to throw in some blunders and to play forced moves quickly?

i have a bad record against those countries from a certain period in time which i dont have vs usa players. if your synopsis is right then the american players must also deliberately lose matches whilst cheating

AlanLlewellyn wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:32 am

i have a bad record against those countries from a certain period in time which i dont have vs usa players. if your synopsis is right then the american players must also deliberately lose matches whilst cheating

That's called sandbagging. Or in England, sharking. I'm surprised a player of your experience hasn't heard of it.

"Or in England, sharking."

Are you sure?

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:09 pm

"Or in England, sharking."

Are you sure?

Yes, in my junior years in England we called a player a shark who manipulated their grade by losing games on purpose. I didn't know the American term was "sandbagger" until internet chess became widespread.

Sigh. I know what a "shark" (noun) is in the non-aquatic sense. "Sharking" (from verb) has a rather more usual specific slang meaning...

Sorry for the digression but I do not think it damages the integrity of the discussion.

Sorry, I thought you were making a Britain/America distinction. I honestly hadn't encountered it as a synonym for pantsing, nor it seems have wiktionary or thefreedictionary.com. I am sadly unfamiliar with the sites in the first page of the Google results

Sandbagging is the more popular term now, and is quite fitting to the behaviour pattern (the chess equivalent of deliberately sinking your rating far lower then you have any right to be - famously exploited by UK players in the old graded sections of the grand prix) but I was under the impression that sharking was not really connected to rating and more of a gambling thing where you initially feign weakness and then proceed to win every subsequent game against an opponent ( who will not back down as they now believe they can beat you again ).

Hustling, is what that is.

shark
Also pool shark, poolshark (US); sharp, pool sharp (British)

1. Verb: To perform some act or make some utterance with the intent to distract, irritate or intimidate the opponent so that they do not perform well, miss a shot, etc.[6] Most league and tournament rules forbid blatant sharking, as a form of unsportsmanlike conduct, but it is very common in bar pool.
2. Noun: Another term for hustler.[6]
3. Noun: A very good player. This usage is common among non-players who often intend it as a compliment and are not aware of its derogatory senses (above)


Any road... I think he ran away.

I think I am with Joey here. I know little of these technical terms, but I do believe that a minimum requirement of sharking is that money is involved.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:23 pm

I think I am with Joey here. I know little of these technical terms, but I do believe that a minimum requirement of sharking is that money is involved.

Have you always referred to lowering one's grade to play in easy sections as sandbagging?

I was always under the impression that holding the side of one's hand to one's forehead was a universal gesture for "beware the undergraded player", understood by uncontacted tribes in Papua New Guinea

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:23 pm

I think I am with Joey here. I know little of these technical terms, but I do believe that a minimum requirement of sharking is that money is involved.

If someone deliberately loses one or more games in order to be eligible for a lower Division of the Counties Championships, what would you call that?

(Before anyone asks: No, I have never thrown a competitive game for that or any other reason.)

David Sedgwick wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 11:56 pm

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:23 pm

I think I am with Joey here. I know little of these technical terms, but I do believe that a minimum requirement of sharking is that money is involved.

If someone deliberately loses one or more games in order to be eligible for a lower Division of the Counties Championships, what would you call that?

(Before anyone asks: No, I have never thrown a competitive game for that or any other reason.)

same here those last sentiments

I think "sandbagging" was originally a poker term (maybe Stewart can confirm). It means bluffing that you hold a weaker hand than you actually do, in order to get the other players to bet big, instead of betting high yourself and scaring them off.

Gaming the ratings has a history. There was one notorious case many years ago where a player happened to have gradings in two different unions (SCCU and MCCU, from memory) and entered a grade-restricted section using the lower one. He was found out and disqualified. A few years later there was accidental confusion between two players with the same surname and first initial. As a result, one of them, who was much stronger than the other, for a time had an artificially low rating which he put to good use hoovering up prize money in lower-rated sections. Such incidents are unlikely to occur again now that every player has to have a unique ID code.

John Clarke wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 13, 2022 2:06 am

I think "sandbagging" was originally a poker term (maybe Stewart can confirm). It means bluffing that you hold a weaker hand than you actually do, in order to get the other players to bet big, instead of betting high yourself and scaring them off.

Gaming the ratings has a history. There was one notorious case many years ago where a player happened to have gradings in two different unions (SCCU and MCCU, from memory) and entered a grade-restricted section using the lower one. He was found out and disqualified. A few years later there was accidental confusion between two players with the same surname and first initial. As a result, one of them, who was much stronger than the other, for a time had an artificially low rating which he put to good use hoovering up prize money in lower-rated sections. Such incidents are unlikely to occur again now that every player has to have a unique ID code.

I dont think anyone is accusing me of sandbagging but i have not won a single tournament in 32 years except the ulverston club championship three different years, which didnt have a prize fund.
i have only got a few seconds and thirds in about 80 different weekenders etc.

John Clarke wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 13, 2022 2:06 am

Gaming the ratings has a history. There was one notorious case many years ago where a player happened to have gradings in two different unions (SCCU and MCCU, from memory) and entered a grade-restricted section using the lower one. He was found out and disqualified.

That was nearly fifty years ago. C H O'D Alexander, who died in 1974, wrote a letter to CHESS about the episode shortly before his death.

It was the SCCU and the WECU. The player entered an U155 section at the Woolacombe Congress, quoting his WECU grade of 152. He won the tournament.

It was then discovered that he played most of his chess in the SCCU area and that his SCCU grade was 177. He justified his entry on the grounds that he was entitled to use his WECU grade when playing in the WECU area. Woolacombe were having none of it and disqualified him.

I subsequently learned that the player died in accident a few years later.

John Clarke wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 13, 2022 2:06 am

Such incidents are unlikely to occur again now that every player has to have a unique ID code.

Don't you believe it.

Not that long ago, five to ten years, it was the practice of the ECF to deactivate the FIDE ratings of ENG players who played in a FIDE rated event but were not Gold members.

There were two players with the same fairly common name. One of them played in Gibraltar. The ECF deactivated his rating because the other player was not a Gold member.

When I investigated how this had happened, I found that the two players were shown in the ECF database as having the same FIDE ID. At that time at any rate, the ECF system didn't preclude you from assigning the same FIDE ID to more than one player.