The cheats in warzone series

I think that there should be a change in daily and weekend warzones series since there is a lot of cheating.

I have just seeing today's warzone final and in the top 9 that I can see in the leaderboard all were or sandbaggers or 2nd type "not fair players" since I am not sure if you think that is cheating.

First way to cheat is by sandbagging, I mean I have played several sandbaggers, I am usually around 2200 tournament rating I was 2240 or so when I started it. I have lost 3 games against 1600 people I do not imply that I can not lose against them it is just very unlikely since I have won quite well against 1800+ players in the same tournament. I reported them as sandbaggers, but I do not think that is the solution. There are a lot of players that resign against 1600 less players to keep their rating low and then play really strong against 1800+. In the top 9 there were 7 players rated between 1500~1700 that have won nearly all their games against 1800+ which should be very unlikely with their rating. I suppose that there are more sandbaggers that haven't get into the top 9.

Second way to "cheat" is what some 1400 were doing. Which I do not take it as cheating but taking advance of the point system situation. They inmediatly resign against people that they think they couldn't win and double cube against 1300~1500 and since when they have lost so many games their handicap rating gets very low. Thus, they win around 40 points out of 50 (without double cubing and without streak win multiplier) points when they play against a 1400 player which they think they can win, with a lot of time advantage. That way they get to around 120 games in one hour in 2 min games which is impresive.

I personally think that there should be a bit less of a compensation for rating difference. I would prefer to change it to positional handicap instead of this point handicap since it is boring to report nearly every oponent you are playing against because they play like 2000+ when their rating is just 1600 with the time handicap it brings.

I do not know if this is an appropiet place to post a new topic like this but I would like to know other people opinions.

Sorry for the inconvenience and have a nice day/night.

Xabi

we are discussing here something similar:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=505

anyway some players are not really sandbaggers, they just cannot loose time against a 1400, so they resign to play a game with a better player, but the system is done in a way that their rating is reduced.
Of curse there are normal sandbaggers too.

The new system in the warzone tournaments seems a bit better, but i didn't test eough

I would agree there are an awful lot of cheats in the warzones. Ive complained a few times about losing to 1600 players who I think are sandbagging. Like xabichess I would not say I could never lose to them, but you get the same attitude and are accused of being arrogant rather than people look seriously into it.

I also dont like the points system, I find myself entering an event and having no chance whatsoever of coming in the top 10. I think position is a much better idea and gives much more equal oppurtunites when compared with the points system.

Once again I also have a query about the warzone lag, for me playing normal games, even sit n' go is perfectly fine, but once im in a warzone there is tremedous lag and for some reason when each player is down to 10 seconds i find my self premoving only to find my clock running down to 3 second due to the lag. I know you will probably ignore me again, and use the party line "no one else has trouble" but I find that hard to believe with users now creating anti lag campaigns against your site.

from your beloved
Pants

apparently, making the "winning streak" tie-break factor more important might solve most the issues.
correct me if i'm wrong or support for future discussion,
regards.

@Kravtz: me too I think I have send a feedback saying that in the warzone series the multiplier should be back to 1 when you lose, that way 1900+ people can do some more damage by getting higher streaks. Making sandbagging senseless.

Yeah, I agree with them. There should either be different tournaments for different ratings or there should be some other handicap and not the points handicap. The points handicap seems unfair, in fact, time handicap is the only handicap which seems fair to me. Points handicap leads to many problems as stated above and elsewhere.

Either that, or the point handicap should be altered; It should give the lower rated people more points if they win, but it should not effect the amount of points they lose.

Please figure out something to stop the domination of lower-rated players and sandbaggers in warzones

I forgot to mention in the first post that I am not really against the point handicap even though I think it is a tough handicap for higher rated players. I mean I have had really a lot of fun in the S&G warzones which are point handicapped, once I even got to the top 3, since there are not sandbaggers, I suppose that few cubits are not enough tempting for sandbaggers.

Having said that I still think to be fairer to high rated players the streak multiplier should go back to 1 when you lose/draw your first game.

Regards Xabier.

i mean this warzone should have an own Rating (Warzone Rating) !

Obiwan: still the cheats are done the same way, I played last weekend series final and I am dissapointed to see that there are still a lot of sandbaggers, although I managed to win most of my games against these sandbaggers.

Sean: I want to avoid one class of sandbagging that I forgot to mention earlier, since I thought that just 1400~1500 players would do. In this particular final I have seen another kind of sandbagging. I played a 2100 tournament rating player which was playing in his floor rating, around 2350 tournament rating max, quite a tough player. I was around 2250 tournament rating myself. I played him twice, even though he was just 100 points less than me he still had around 40 more seconds to play with and if he beat me he would win 920 score points while I would just win 80 quite a big margin for just 100 points. The main reason I can think of is that he resigns against 1600 less and quite a lot of times in the begining of the tournament to lower a lot his handicap rating. I mean when we played his handicap rating was around 1800 while mine was around 2250. I mean that is not fair for players that try to win every game instead of just trying to score biggest points.

What I ask is in these tournaments can the handicap rating too have a floor rating?
That would make the sandbagging impossible for high rated people at least with their old ids.

Or is it legit to lose on porpouse against a 1900 or less to make your handicap rating very low and then sandbag against 2000+ to win a lot of score points in these warzone series?

I know a way to stop these kind of sandbagging, but I don't think that people will agree with me, I would make a player automatically forfeit for a tournament if this player has lost against fastly against his rating (or handicap rating) - 200 points and has won 2-3 times against his rating (or handicap rating) + 200~300.

That way it would be more legit. I don't know if it is not viable to make that kind of thing to lower the sandbaggers or not but it would be nice.

Regards Xabier.

I think that this handicap system is stupid. Chess is not a lottery this is a game for brains. What is this motto "everyone could win" suggest? That some 1300 rated guy who barely know how to move pieces can win? There is no way for him to win.

But for a person who is actually 1900 playing 1300 this gives extra advantage.
It's even annoying to look at this tournaments.
Sean or any of moderators, find a minute or ten of your precious time and enter this dayly or weekly warzone. And look how this 1500- people are playing. Sometimes it's hard for kingscrusher to win 2 minutes tournament, because some 1300 rated guy is just on killing spree.

The main idea behind warzone (no waiting time) is excellent, but there should not be any handicap.
If you want CC to be the first, I think you should consider the vote of majority and as far as I see, no one is really exciting from this handicap points.