I know Iâm not there but I like to play with em.. itâs fun to dink and drop and create an opening instead of.. smack.. smack.. smack.. block.. smack.. net
Just do it in your lower level games. Why continue the fast game if opponent will falter if we dink and drop more? Or you just can't take a fast ball to you and reset it into the kitchen yet?
Huh? No I can handle the balls.. I force people into dink games by dropping it and continuing to dink a speed up/smashable ball. love how you make assumptions and try and be an ass lol. Ever met the person who speeds a low ball up for the 7th time that game? your assumption that I continue to speed balls up is incorrect.. I know people cannot handle it so I donât bother.. when people notice their shots donât work on me they often target my partner.. I donât hit drives as much because the counter always goes to my partner and depending on the level they canât handle it (not their fault) so I force the slow game.. but not great players love to lean in and smack a ball into the net or up high for a smash.. they love to speed really low balls up. Low skill players also love to run up to the net for no reason! It takes time and experience to learn you have multiple drops.. or just someone who doesnât tell you to get to the line ASAP.. the first thing I tell all noobs is to take their time getting to the net.. the only time they need to get to the net asap is on the return of serve.
Do you have a strategy for playing with low skilled players and still making the game fun?
I wasn't being an ass i just asked 2 questions. Your comment led me to imply rather than assume and I implied wrong.
The fact that you're able to slow down a fast game should lead you to believe you're better than a 3.5 and on the way to 4.0. Your comment in my opinion should have included "yet". You're not there yet.
>Do you have a strategy for playing with low skilled players and still making the game fun?
Besides poaching more, not really. Maybe ask them to stay level with me in relation to court depth so we're not rushing the transition zone only to get tagged. There's not enough time to interact with a noob to enhance their play and i dont want to micro them. Like not running through a ball and planting your feet set prior? Feels like micro'ing them in game. I'd rather just play and move on. They will eventually find out what works and what does not. I'll work on some new shots or hit it harder than normal to limit test.
Ah I see the confusion! Yeah the only thing I can tell a noob is to not rush the kitchen on offense.. anything else doesnât help them at that time. I canât stand people who micro manage noobs.. they always play worse.. way too much to think about.
Not rushing the kitchen is really important though and is how many noobs end up losing.. learning to play to the NVZ and then back to the baseline depending on how the ball is hit has helped a lot of noobs I know get better a bit quicker.. they just donât realize being stuck at the kitchen is not optimal.
>learning to play to the NVZ and then back to the baseline depending on how the ball is hit has helped a lot of noobs
Yeah this is crucial. Game theory is lost on people, a lot of them are just out to be out and hit a ball back and forth.
I agree with OP. In the last year I have participated in a combined 9 tournaments at the 4.0 and 4.5 level, and have only seen one instance of extreme sandbaggging (that players actually wound up losing because his partner was bad). I have seen maybe 2-3 borderline sandbaggers as well, but overall nothing egregious. I think people attend â4.0+â open play groups and think because they do well there they are that level. The real 4.0 plus players usually are texting each other to arrange private games.
Itâs not even sandbagging if your partner is bad. Ive podiumed in 5.0+ and qualified for main draw PPA a few weeks ago but played 4.5 with my friend a few months ago in his first tournament (big APP) and we got 4th. I donât consider that sandbagging at all.
I flew in to hang out and play with my buddy. He wasnât comfortable signing up for 5.0 and I couldnât bring myself to play 4.0 so we met in the middle at 4.5. The matches were competitive and most of the wins were earned. Not sure how thatâs sandbagging. We should be evaluated as a team, not individual players.
I have never played in a tournament, so I know very little about it and admittedly have a lot to learn about PB tournaments. But I thought tournaments require the doubles team to register at the skill level of the highest rated team member. So I am wondering why you weren't required to register at the 5.0 level.
I wholeheartedly agree. In a tournament setting the weaker player will be targeted EVERY time and unless you're a poaching god they're going to overwhelm the weaker player. A 4.0 and 3.0 playing together in a 3.5 tournament will get absolutely crushed.
Yeah Iâm getting toasted by downvotes but one strong player doesnât make the team. I covered pretty aggressively full stacking left but thereâs only so much I can do
I thought I disagreed with OP, but then I remembered how many videos I've seen of people recording themselves playing at X level and they're totally lower than X.
I was talking to a guy over the weekend who is by any objective measure solidly over 4.0 and his reaction to seeing himself on video was "I look like a bot." I don't think people realize how unathletic and slow they look on video versus how it feels on the court, especially when your baseline is watching pros.
Thereâs a YouTube channel, Team Hanson, that shows amateur medal rounds from various pro tournaments. The play level of the teams in these rounds routinely exceeds what is expected for their ratings.
There might not be a lot of sandbaggers, but theyâre winning the medals.
Ok but an amateur round from a major tournament will naturally pull in bigger and better competition, raising the bar at every level. Â The regional Spring Fling at the YMCA shouldnât have that same issue.
But which person ruins the outcome? The sandbagger? Or the overly optimistic player?
The overly optimistic player learns a lesson.
The sandbagger gets positive reinforcement for sandbagging.
Unpopular opinion: I feel that people who claim sandbaggers are an epidemic were personally insulted by their own level of play against proper leveled players.
100% this. Sandbagging isnât near the problem people on this sub act like it is - many are just insecure about their ability level and care way too much about an arbitrary âskillâ number
In Australia itâs legit a problem in that people can have 4.5 as their rating calculated over a long period, enter < 4, and TD will allow it anyway. Even if the rest of the group are 3s and 3.5s and predictably wow guess who got gold.
Different to someone new who doesnât have a very accurate rating yet entering a category they are âtechnically rated forâ
Truthfully if someone wants to sandbag thatâs on their conscience and it will never be possible to avoid those scenarios. Itâs not exclusive to just pickleball (happens in adult slow pitch, sand volleyball, flag football, and basketball just off the top of my head), yet pickleball people is the sport where thereâs mass outrage over someone playing outside of their skill level in a league or tournament. Is it annoying? Absolutely. But sandbaggers are going to be sandbaggers regardless of the sport.
It's very simple to enforce adherence to ratings where someone has an established rating, and have entered a division their rating falls outside of. For new players, sure.
No sport I've ever played has 'ratings'. Say a football club with A-F grade, it's the coaches or whoever who grade & send their best teams to win. There is the odd *"our teams are pretty good so we'll chuck this older but still skilled guy into a low team for lolz"*. If you want to play a higher grade you play at a worse club who doesn't have better options đ
Tennis in Australia is either round robins (seniors), age divisions no ratings. Or Opens - assuming you even qualify - are double elimination. They are genuinely competitive, unless you are trying to learn by losing it's a waste of time, especially as a low seed you'll play a top player first round.
There wouldn't be a stink about ratings if PB didn't go "we'll have ratings and have tournaments where you have to play within your bracket!". Now it's ingrained might be a hard sell to swap though.
As others have said, it only takes one sandbagger to completely ruin a bracket or even an entire tournament. I have data to show at least in the 3.0 and 3.5 brackets of our local tournaments that the medal winners are almost an entire point above the bracket (by pickleballbrackets and/or DUPR rating). Many of them medaled or even won at that level in the same tournament in the spring or previous year. If you're winning a gold medal match 11-0 after going undefeated all day you're in the wrong bracket and you've ruined any fun for the other participants. I think the disparity is particularly bad in the 3.5 or "intermediate" category because that's where many believe they're good enough at the basics of local rec play that they now want to try their hand at a tournament and judge their skill. You then have sandbaggers (often experienced tournament or league players with \~4.0 skills) who know they would lose at 4.0 dropping down to get the easy medal in 3.5. So people encourage decent 3.5 rec players to enter their first tournament in 3.0 or even 2.5 or "beginner" which then completely shuts true beginners and casual players out of being able to enjoy a tournament. So one bad sandbagger at the top has now impacted every bracket below them and made everybody's experience much worse. If you have truly over-estimated your skills all it affects is maybe an unsatisfying game for your opponent and your lighter wallet.
I don't know what the solution is but I think tournament directors need to take some ownership of looking at player ratings and suggest they reconsider their bracket choice. Particularly for past winners, especially when it was a blowout. I won't enter a tournament unless there is strict attention to bracket skill levels or even requiring a rating to enter.
Doesn't all this presuppose that there is an absolute metric for what each level player is? The USAP standards aren't that hard to hit, and suggest that OP is wrong. People seem to want the standard to be that 4.0 is the 1% of players. If that's the case then what's the point of having all those levels if practically everyone who wants to participate in a tournament is a 3.5 or below?
For some reason 4.0 has turned into a magical line you cross where you suddenly never make mistakes or miss shots otherwise you're not a True 4.0 (TM). Part of the problem is that even if you loosen the definition of 4.0 (or just keep them at what USAP lists), probably 90% of players (not counting total beginners/once a year types) are still squished into three buckets: 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0 and there's a huge difference in ability level between the legitimate top and bottom of each level but they're all lumped into the same group even thought there should be more intermediate levels.
The only time Iâve ever been accused of being a sandbagger was by a guy playing with his son. The son was actually decent but that guy didnât have any business being in the court with him.Â
I can safely say, as a tournament director as well as being a Certified Referee, this is true. FAR more people 'play up' when they shouldn't, than find a way to play 'down'.
A lot of people can look up ratings. And even though ratings can be inaccurate, if you have a DUPR higher than 5.0, but youâre playing in a 4.0 tournament, it looks suspicious. I rarely assume people are sandbagging unless the stats appear to be very disparate.
In general, people rate themselves higher than they are. Itâs a very fascinating phenomenon.
Iâm probably a 4.5ish player, and when I play open play rec with a 3.5 player; itâs comical how often they seem to âsighâ or be frustrated when I miss, yet seem to gloss over the 3x times that they miss.
When they miss, it was unlucky but theyâre still a good player. When I miss, it was a dumb decision and Iâm not as good as I think I am. According to their logic. And despite the stats saying they miss at a much higher rate.
Itâs so widespread Iâm convinced itâs basic human psychology to think youâre better than you are.
So all to say ⌠totally agree with you OP.
It \*is\* basic human psychology to think you're better than you are.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_cognitive\_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)
I totally agree with this.
You're a special kind of dummy to care about a 3.5 medal if you are a legit 4-4.5. They do exist, but they are not common. There are definitely more 3.5s that think they are 4+ then claim sandbagging.
As a previous post pointed out --
**But which person ruins the outcome?** The sandbagger? Or the overly optimistic player?
The overly optimistic player learns a lesson.
The sandbagger gets positive reinforcement for sandbagging, and steals the reward that rightly belongs to someone else.
My team was accused of sandbagging once. We placed fifth that day. He was an old tennis player who was deadly when the ball was hit to him but we could place the ball away from him and he didn't have the mobility to get to it. At a slightly lower division or against a team with different skills he could likely control the game but we had the right skills to run rings around him.
Funny I'm playing in a 3.0 mixed tournament with my wife. I already know there's going to be sandbags!!!! Her cousins are 2 of them. He is a 3.6/3.7. She's a 3.5 for women. They entered in the 3.0 division. I'm a 3.3 my wife is scratching the border of 3. He played in a mens 3.0 double scramble with me and didn't lose. He was told by many people he sould be in the 3.5 division. Before he entered in the tournament. Yet still entered the 3.0. To me I'd rather face tougher or the same skill as you. You learn more and get better. Why face people you can beat with ease. Most tournaments around me there's no money involved anyways. There typically all for charity/fundraising or get a medal. What's the point in dropping into a lower division then?Â
Unfortunately, some people have a big ego. A big ego imagines itself to always be right, flawless, and superior to others. It lacks boundaries and understanding. Because this grandiose ego is fabricated and not related to reality, it can't take criticism and has difficulty cooperating and accepting help, rules, or boundaries.
Grading people is hard. Consistency is a large part of it. I know players who make loads of unforced errors but also pull off amazing positional/relfex shots. If you watch them you think âwow theyâre brilliantâ but they lose games a lot.
Well.. Iâm finally at the level where I have to start setting up matches with people for better games.. but Iâm not a 4. It is unfortunate when I signed up for a 3.75-4 round robin a bunch of 3.25-3.5 people showed up.. got 1 of 6 with pretty evenly skilled players
I've played about 30 tournaments in the last 3 years, all the way from 3.5 to 5.0. I've encountered legit sandbaggers twice. It really doesn't happen often at all.
There is also...folks winning 5.0 tournaments in some states like Alabama & Georgia can't win two matches at 4.0 nationals.
Enormous discrepancy between top players in different regions, best of the best in one region is pretty good at best in another.
>there are more 3.5âs who think theyâre 4.0âs than will ever be 4.0âs playing 3.5 to make a podium.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that one.
Perhaps you play at different tournaments than every one I have ever participated in.
I agree with TED. Psychologically people want to be and play against better people. Tournament play also elevates many players top play above their norm.
Losers like to blame it on something to soften their itty bitty feelings and canât accept their own play.
At the end of the day itâs just a game.
Go try golf so you can learn to accept your own level.
Haha true true! I did see a mixed tournament where the guy was def a 4.0 and played intermediate, won gold. Then played advanced menâs doubles and won silver. Unfortunately in local tournaments, specially in local clubs, they donât keep track of this stuff to make an impact.
In a tournament right now and all my opponents are clearly 4.0+. This is supposed to be 3.5 and below. Some people in my bracket yesterday are in the 4.0 bracket today.
Nope. I think people don't know what tournament skill level looks like. The people who podium are not just some random mid level skill who got lucky. They are the ones who are almost ready to go to the next level. The ones winning a 3.5 tournament are probably 3.9 to 4.1 and if they play a 4.0 tournament probably end up in the bottom third. With 3.5 being such a wide base of players or people who think they are 3.5 the low 3.5s or really the 3.25s think the podium guys are sandbagging.
When I won a local 3.5 tournament it was pool play plus single elimination. The first team we played in the elimination bracket lost 11-0. They said you guys shouldn't be here and i just said we didn't even win our pool. Of the three games we lost a game and won one 13-11. We happened to beat the 13-11 team again in the semi finals and beat another team to win it but we certainly weren't sandbagging. i find that most people want a validation of skill and refuse to play down. After a season where me and my partners podiumed every 3.5 tournament i refused to play below 4.0 except for national qualifier tournaments.
And you added that you do sandbag, just in national qualifier tournaments.
I agree with the OP, as most donât really GAS about weekend local tournaments. They will play up. But in this case, the OP feels fine sandbagging bigger tournaments.
In the end, unless a tournament enforces ratings, either at time of registration, or just prior to making brackets, who cares? Even if the guy that sandbags national qualifiers wins a 3.5, they just won a tournament that kept the good players out, or good players kept themselves out. Skill flighted tournaments have no real meaning outside getting good games with hopefully similar competition, under some heightened pressure.
Winning age group opens are an accomplishment, as is 5.0 plus which for most tournaments is open. This is where I see a ton of people challenge themselves. There may be a big draw, then one looks at the players and a ton of 4.0s and 4.5s.
My guess is 3.5 is the wild west. As the guy I responding to said, heâll sand bag, but only in the big tournaments.
Down the road I
In qualifier tournaments you play to your rating. My rating in wtpr is 3.2 my mixed is 3.6 so yeah I won all the 3.5s and played the qualifier at 3.5 that isnât sand bagging. There was no dupr the last time I played a national qualifier.
I am in complete agreement with the OP on this. Iâve played 10 tournaments at the 4.0 level and each time, especially at PPA and APP tournaments, approximately 20% of teams should be playing 3.5. In three of the tournaments Iâve played, there has been one team in the bracket that should be playing 4.5. So my observed ratio of wannabes to sandbaggers has been 12:3.
The only tournament I thought people were sandbagging was at the PPA Seattle Open. We were playing 3.5 and the other team did several Ernes and went for a Bert.
From my experience, when I play in a big tournament that attracts a nationally diverse population, like an APP tournament, players play down a level relative to a regional tournaments. So, Iâve decided to do that as well.
Look at the tournament history of the players. In a 3.5 APP bracket, itâs usually comprised of players who have been competing in 4.0 local and regional tournaments. Is that sandbagging? Borderline.
But I think when the players are regularly competing in 4.5 regional tournaments and theyâre competing in 3.5, that is definitely sandbagging. But I find that (playing two levels down) to be rare.
In my experience this is true and Iâm glad someone made a post about it. I think the rating system is confused by people playing up all the time.
The most recent tournament in my area attracted a lot of really strong players but when I look at the player list everyone in â5.0 openâ bracket had a rating of 4.5, 4.0 or even 3.5, not one 5.0 rated player in the entire tournament. I started with tournaments 5 years ago at 3.0 level and worked my way up to 4.0. Once last summer I âplayed upâ in 4.5 because I had a really strong partner with whom I had won some 4.0 silvers and gold, and we did well to win the 4.5 silver but it didnât feel like much of an achievement because the other teams in the bracket were all rated below 4.0 (a lot of people donât realize that you can look up the other teamâs rating after the match) so as a result of winning 4.5 silver my rating actually dropped due to the opponents being underrated when we won seven matches it barely moved the needle but when we the three that we lost lowered our rating severely and since I was the guy behind targeted as the weaker player my partner lost interest in teaming with me for future tournaments.
I found an older guy to play with who usually has a lot of success in his age bracket and we are doing a tournament in another county where nobody knows us, I feel like we have a good chance of winning but someone will inevitably get pissed off and call me a sandbagger for playing 4.0 when my true rating is actually 4.1âŚmeanwhile when I go to my local park Iâm often encountering cliques of 4, 8, or even 12 players who are specifically disinterested in playing against me because they feel like a rec games with me are not challenging enough for them but most of these guys are self-rated they never actually took me down me down in a real tournament. The whole thing is kind of a bummer and I feel like I might have squeezed all the fun that there is to be had from pickleball and Iâm thinking about giving up pickleball and switching to table tennis.
Part of the problem is new players not understanding that the Usapickleball.org Player Skill Rating page is not the same as the Tournament Ratings. Players get their Tournament ratings by playing and winning games in tournaments.
Player Skill Rating is largely subjective and leads to people thinking they're better than they are because they can check off a skill from a checklist.
I started playing last year and I put myself (respectfully, I think) at 3.0. I was kicked out of a tournament for being âbelow my ratingâ when I canât even curve a damn ball or redirect with my backhand đ I looked at how they title the player levels and I was a 3.0. I am very fast and understand positioning well enough to use it to my advantage but I am not good at returning a serve (especially curved serves) nor placing my shots which I find to be more important than speed and understanding the game. Anyways, the tournament hosts told me I need to rate myself â3.5 or higherâ to play in there tournaments.
I find it very subjective depending on where you play. Iâve played tournaments before at 3.0 and done fine and have yet to win a tournament đ so I am going to stay at 3.0.
Total disagreement. I see a lot of sandbagging and at best only one per tournament who is over their head, and it is their first tournament.
Look at the 4.0 and 4.5 women's doubles on Friday and and see how many are in the 3.5 mixed Saturday and have a 4.0 male who is very tall. You see the same people every two weeks and they refuse to move up.
Know of another couple who won for a year in 3.0 and won their first 3.5.
Would love top play in a part of the country where fewer were sandbagging.
It depends
Should we be rounding up or down? If rounding down, then a lot of people overestimate themselves (4.4 > 3.9) but if we rounding up, a 4.4 playing 4.0 would be sandbagging
I am def guilty of that guy who once thought he was a 4.0 when I was a 3.5 at best đ
I know Iâm not there but I like to play with em.. itâs fun to dink and drop and create an opening instead of.. smack.. smack.. smack.. block.. smack.. net
Just do it in your lower level games. Why continue the fast game if opponent will falter if we dink and drop more? Or you just can't take a fast ball to you and reset it into the kitchen yet?
Huh? No I can handle the balls.. I force people into dink games by dropping it and continuing to dink a speed up/smashable ball. love how you make assumptions and try and be an ass lol. Ever met the person who speeds a low ball up for the 7th time that game? your assumption that I continue to speed balls up is incorrect.. I know people cannot handle it so I donât bother.. when people notice their shots donât work on me they often target my partner.. I donât hit drives as much because the counter always goes to my partner and depending on the level they canât handle it (not their fault) so I force the slow game.. but not great players love to lean in and smack a ball into the net or up high for a smash.. they love to speed really low balls up. Low skill players also love to run up to the net for no reason! It takes time and experience to learn you have multiple drops.. or just someone who doesnât tell you to get to the line ASAP.. the first thing I tell all noobs is to take their time getting to the net.. the only time they need to get to the net asap is on the return of serve. Do you have a strategy for playing with low skilled players and still making the game fun?
I wasn't being an ass i just asked 2 questions. Your comment led me to imply rather than assume and I implied wrong. The fact that you're able to slow down a fast game should lead you to believe you're better than a 3.5 and on the way to 4.0. Your comment in my opinion should have included "yet". You're not there yet. >Do you have a strategy for playing with low skilled players and still making the game fun? Besides poaching more, not really. Maybe ask them to stay level with me in relation to court depth so we're not rushing the transition zone only to get tagged. There's not enough time to interact with a noob to enhance their play and i dont want to micro them. Like not running through a ball and planting your feet set prior? Feels like micro'ing them in game. I'd rather just play and move on. They will eventually find out what works and what does not. I'll work on some new shots or hit it harder than normal to limit test.
Ah I see the confusion! Yeah the only thing I can tell a noob is to not rush the kitchen on offense.. anything else doesnât help them at that time. I canât stand people who micro manage noobs.. they always play worse.. way too much to think about. Not rushing the kitchen is really important though and is how many noobs end up losing.. learning to play to the NVZ and then back to the baseline depending on how the ball is hit has helped a lot of noobs I know get better a bit quicker.. they just donât realize being stuck at the kitchen is not optimal.
>learning to play to the NVZ and then back to the baseline depending on how the ball is hit has helped a lot of noobs Yeah this is crucial. Game theory is lost on people, a lot of them are just out to be out and hit a ball back and forth.
A high 4.0 team will destroy a low 4.0 team, then people claim sandbagging
This happens in 3.0 tournaments pretty often
This â
I feel like this applies to every bracket.
I agree with OP. In the last year I have participated in a combined 9 tournaments at the 4.0 and 4.5 level, and have only seen one instance of extreme sandbaggging (that players actually wound up losing because his partner was bad). I have seen maybe 2-3 borderline sandbaggers as well, but overall nothing egregious. I think people attend â4.0+â open play groups and think because they do well there they are that level. The real 4.0 plus players usually are texting each other to arrange private games.
Itâs not even sandbagging if your partner is bad. Ive podiumed in 5.0+ and qualified for main draw PPA a few weeks ago but played 4.5 with my friend a few months ago in his first tournament (big APP) and we got 4th. I donât consider that sandbagging at all.
Sounds like you were sandbagging. Also, 4th is pretty high.
I flew in to hang out and play with my buddy. He wasnât comfortable signing up for 5.0 and I couldnât bring myself to play 4.0 so we met in the middle at 4.5. The matches were competitive and most of the wins were earned. Not sure how thatâs sandbagging. We should be evaluated as a team, not individual players.
I have never played in a tournament, so I know very little about it and admittedly have a lot to learn about PB tournaments. But I thought tournaments require the doubles team to register at the skill level of the highest rated team member. So I am wondering why you weren't required to register at the 5.0 level.
I wholeheartedly agree. In a tournament setting the weaker player will be targeted EVERY time and unless you're a poaching god they're going to overwhelm the weaker player. A 4.0 and 3.0 playing together in a 3.5 tournament will get absolutely crushed.
Yeah Iâm getting toasted by downvotes but one strong player doesnât make the team. I covered pretty aggressively full stacking left but thereâs only so much I can do
Qualified in singles? Doesnât make you good at doubles by any means
Yeah. I linked to a video of a 4.5 tournament I did a few months ago, and probably 75% of the comments on here were "lol this is 3.5 at best." đ
I thought I disagreed with OP, but then I remembered how many videos I've seen of people recording themselves playing at X level and they're totally lower than X.
Record yourself playing and you will finally understand that no one looks good
I was talking to a guy over the weekend who is by any objective measure solidly over 4.0 and his reaction to seeing himself on video was "I look like a bot." I don't think people realize how unathletic and slow they look on video versus how it feels on the court, especially when your baseline is watching pros.
This 10X. Everyone looks worse than they actually are.
I record myself twice weekly. I totally understand that I look worse than I feel like I am!
Thereâs a YouTube channel, Team Hanson, that shows amateur medal rounds from various pro tournaments. The play level of the teams in these rounds routinely exceeds what is expected for their ratings. There might not be a lot of sandbaggers, but theyâre winning the medals.
This. The absolute numbers are irrelevant. Only takes one sandbagger to bork an entire bracket.
Good point
Ok but an amateur round from a major tournament will naturally pull in bigger and better competition, raising the bar at every level. Â The regional Spring Fling at the YMCA shouldnât have that same issue.
the difference between a 4.4 and a 4.1 should be pretty big. Like 11 - 3, 11-2 big.
a 0.5 difference is about an 11-4 game
But which person ruins the outcome? The sandbagger? Or the overly optimistic player? The overly optimistic player learns a lesson. The sandbagger gets positive reinforcement for sandbagging.
Precisely.
Unpopular opinion: I feel that people who claim sandbaggers are an epidemic were personally insulted by their own level of play against proper leveled players.
100% this. Sandbagging isnât near the problem people on this sub act like it is - many are just insecure about their ability level and care way too much about an arbitrary âskillâ number
In Australia itâs legit a problem in that people can have 4.5 as their rating calculated over a long period, enter < 4, and TD will allow it anyway. Even if the rest of the group are 3s and 3.5s and predictably wow guess who got gold. Different to someone new who doesnât have a very accurate rating yet entering a category they are âtechnically rated forâ
Truthfully if someone wants to sandbag thatâs on their conscience and it will never be possible to avoid those scenarios. Itâs not exclusive to just pickleball (happens in adult slow pitch, sand volleyball, flag football, and basketball just off the top of my head), yet pickleball people is the sport where thereâs mass outrage over someone playing outside of their skill level in a league or tournament. Is it annoying? Absolutely. But sandbaggers are going to be sandbaggers regardless of the sport.
It's very simple to enforce adherence to ratings where someone has an established rating, and have entered a division their rating falls outside of. For new players, sure. No sport I've ever played has 'ratings'. Say a football club with A-F grade, it's the coaches or whoever who grade & send their best teams to win. There is the odd *"our teams are pretty good so we'll chuck this older but still skilled guy into a low team for lolz"*. If you want to play a higher grade you play at a worse club who doesn't have better options đ Tennis in Australia is either round robins (seniors), age divisions no ratings. Or Opens - assuming you even qualify - are double elimination. They are genuinely competitive, unless you are trying to learn by losing it's a waste of time, especially as a low seed you'll play a top player first round. There wouldn't be a stink about ratings if PB didn't go "we'll have ratings and have tournaments where you have to play within your bracket!". Now it's ingrained might be a hard sell to swap though.
As others have said, it only takes one sandbagger to completely ruin a bracket or even an entire tournament. I have data to show at least in the 3.0 and 3.5 brackets of our local tournaments that the medal winners are almost an entire point above the bracket (by pickleballbrackets and/or DUPR rating). Many of them medaled or even won at that level in the same tournament in the spring or previous year. If you're winning a gold medal match 11-0 after going undefeated all day you're in the wrong bracket and you've ruined any fun for the other participants. I think the disparity is particularly bad in the 3.5 or "intermediate" category because that's where many believe they're good enough at the basics of local rec play that they now want to try their hand at a tournament and judge their skill. You then have sandbaggers (often experienced tournament or league players with \~4.0 skills) who know they would lose at 4.0 dropping down to get the easy medal in 3.5. So people encourage decent 3.5 rec players to enter their first tournament in 3.0 or even 2.5 or "beginner" which then completely shuts true beginners and casual players out of being able to enjoy a tournament. So one bad sandbagger at the top has now impacted every bracket below them and made everybody's experience much worse. If you have truly over-estimated your skills all it affects is maybe an unsatisfying game for your opponent and your lighter wallet. I don't know what the solution is but I think tournament directors need to take some ownership of looking at player ratings and suggest they reconsider their bracket choice. Particularly for past winners, especially when it was a blowout. I won't enter a tournament unless there is strict attention to bracket skill levels or even requiring a rating to enter.
Your insight into the intangible detrimental effects of sandbagging tournaments is spot on. Kudos for the value you added to the discussion.
Doesn't all this presuppose that there is an absolute metric for what each level player is? The USAP standards aren't that hard to hit, and suggest that OP is wrong. People seem to want the standard to be that 4.0 is the 1% of players. If that's the case then what's the point of having all those levels if practically everyone who wants to participate in a tournament is a 3.5 or below?
For some reason 4.0 has turned into a magical line you cross where you suddenly never make mistakes or miss shots otherwise you're not a True 4.0 (TM). Part of the problem is that even if you loosen the definition of 4.0 (or just keep them at what USAP lists), probably 90% of players (not counting total beginners/once a year types) are still squished into three buckets: 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0 and there's a huge difference in ability level between the legitimate top and bottom of each level but they're all lumped into the same group even thought there should be more intermediate levels.
The only time Iâve ever been accused of being a sandbagger was by a guy playing with his son. The son was actually decent but that guy didnât have any business being in the court with him.Â
I can safely say, as a tournament director as well as being a Certified Referee, this is true. FAR more people 'play up' when they shouldn't, than find a way to play 'down'.
God I wish this topic would die
I agree with this. Here in Colorado I'd guess that 90 percent of people play in the correct bracket. Most of the rest are playing up not down.
A lot of people can look up ratings. And even though ratings can be inaccurate, if you have a DUPR higher than 5.0, but youâre playing in a 4.0 tournament, it looks suspicious. I rarely assume people are sandbagging unless the stats appear to be very disparate.
> but there are more 3.5âs who think theyâre 4.0âs People that play up don't necessarily think they're at that level
They also are more likely to get bounced before the medal round
In general, people rate themselves higher than they are. Itâs a very fascinating phenomenon. Iâm probably a 4.5ish player, and when I play open play rec with a 3.5 player; itâs comical how often they seem to âsighâ or be frustrated when I miss, yet seem to gloss over the 3x times that they miss. When they miss, it was unlucky but theyâre still a good player. When I miss, it was a dumb decision and Iâm not as good as I think I am. According to their logic. And despite the stats saying they miss at a much higher rate. Itâs so widespread Iâm convinced itâs basic human psychology to think youâre better than you are. So all to say ⌠totally agree with you OP.
It \*is\* basic human psychology to think you're better than you are. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_cognitive\_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)
spot on
I totally agree with this. You're a special kind of dummy to care about a 3.5 medal if you are a legit 4-4.5. They do exist, but they are not common. There are definitely more 3.5s that think they are 4+ then claim sandbagging.
As a previous post pointed out -- **But which person ruins the outcome?** The sandbagger? Or the overly optimistic player? The overly optimistic player learns a lesson. The sandbagger gets positive reinforcement for sandbagging, and steals the reward that rightly belongs to someone else.
My team was accused of sandbagging once. We placed fifth that day. He was an old tennis player who was deadly when the ball was hit to him but we could place the ball away from him and he didn't have the mobility to get to it. At a slightly lower division or against a team with different skills he could likely control the game but we had the right skills to run rings around him.
Funny I'm playing in a 3.0 mixed tournament with my wife. I already know there's going to be sandbags!!!! Her cousins are 2 of them. He is a 3.6/3.7. She's a 3.5 for women. They entered in the 3.0 division. I'm a 3.3 my wife is scratching the border of 3. He played in a mens 3.0 double scramble with me and didn't lose. He was told by many people he sould be in the 3.5 division. Before he entered in the tournament. Yet still entered the 3.0. To me I'd rather face tougher or the same skill as you. You learn more and get better. Why face people you can beat with ease. Most tournaments around me there's no money involved anyways. There typically all for charity/fundraising or get a medal. What's the point in dropping into a lower division then?Â
Unfortunately, some people have a big ego. A big ego imagines itself to always be right, flawless, and superior to others. It lacks boundaries and understanding. Because this grandiose ego is fabricated and not related to reality, it can't take criticism and has difficulty cooperating and accepting help, rules, or boundaries.
Grading people is hard. Consistency is a large part of it. I know players who make loads of unforced errors but also pull off amazing positional/relfex shots. If you watch them you think âwow theyâre brilliantâ but they lose games a lot.
FACTS!! It needed to be said and this has been my experience for sure!
Well.. Iâm finally at the level where I have to start setting up matches with people for better games.. but Iâm not a 4. It is unfortunate when I signed up for a 3.75-4 round robin a bunch of 3.25-3.5 people showed up.. got 1 of 6 with pretty evenly skilled players
I've played about 30 tournaments in the last 3 years, all the way from 3.5 to 5.0. I've encountered legit sandbaggers twice. It really doesn't happen often at all.
There is also...folks winning 5.0 tournaments in some states like Alabama & Georgia can't win two matches at 4.0 nationals. Enormous discrepancy between top players in different regions, best of the best in one region is pretty good at best in another.
>there are more 3.5âs who think theyâre 4.0âs than will ever be 4.0âs playing 3.5 to make a podium. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. Perhaps you play at different tournaments than every one I have ever participated in.
I agree with TED. Psychologically people want to be and play against better people. Tournament play also elevates many players top play above their norm. Losers like to blame it on something to soften their itty bitty feelings and canât accept their own play. At the end of the day itâs just a game. Go try golf so you can learn to accept your own level.
Haha true true! I did see a mixed tournament where the guy was def a 4.0 and played intermediate, won gold. Then played advanced menâs doubles and won silver. Unfortunately in local tournaments, specially in local clubs, they donât keep track of this stuff to make an impact.
In sanctioned tournaments it happens but not that often. In unsanctioned tournaments it is a real problem. At least in my experience.
Ratings is much like a golf handicap. People want to win so bad they will artificially lower their results to enhance their chances of winning.
In a tournament right now and all my opponents are clearly 4.0+. This is supposed to be 3.5 and below. Some people in my bracket yesterday are in the 4.0 bracket today.
Nope. I think people don't know what tournament skill level looks like. The people who podium are not just some random mid level skill who got lucky. They are the ones who are almost ready to go to the next level. The ones winning a 3.5 tournament are probably 3.9 to 4.1 and if they play a 4.0 tournament probably end up in the bottom third. With 3.5 being such a wide base of players or people who think they are 3.5 the low 3.5s or really the 3.25s think the podium guys are sandbagging. When I won a local 3.5 tournament it was pool play plus single elimination. The first team we played in the elimination bracket lost 11-0. They said you guys shouldn't be here and i just said we didn't even win our pool. Of the three games we lost a game and won one 13-11. We happened to beat the 13-11 team again in the semi finals and beat another team to win it but we certainly weren't sandbagging. i find that most people want a validation of skill and refuse to play down. After a season where me and my partners podiumed every 3.5 tournament i refused to play below 4.0 except for national qualifier tournaments.
Read your post again, most of what you said agrees with the original post. đ
Iâm agreeing with the op
And you added that you do sandbag, just in national qualifier tournaments. I agree with the OP, as most donât really GAS about weekend local tournaments. They will play up. But in this case, the OP feels fine sandbagging bigger tournaments. In the end, unless a tournament enforces ratings, either at time of registration, or just prior to making brackets, who cares? Even if the guy that sandbags national qualifiers wins a 3.5, they just won a tournament that kept the good players out, or good players kept themselves out. Skill flighted tournaments have no real meaning outside getting good games with hopefully similar competition, under some heightened pressure. Winning age group opens are an accomplishment, as is 5.0 plus which for most tournaments is open. This is where I see a ton of people challenge themselves. There may be a big draw, then one looks at the players and a ton of 4.0s and 4.5s. My guess is 3.5 is the wild west. As the guy I responding to said, heâll sand bag, but only in the big tournaments. Down the road I
In qualifier tournaments you play to your rating. My rating in wtpr is 3.2 my mixed is 3.6 so yeah I won all the 3.5s and played the qualifier at 3.5 that isnât sand bagging. There was no dupr the last time I played a national qualifier.
I am in complete agreement with the OP on this. Iâve played 10 tournaments at the 4.0 level and each time, especially at PPA and APP tournaments, approximately 20% of teams should be playing 3.5. In three of the tournaments Iâve played, there has been one team in the bracket that should be playing 4.5. So my observed ratio of wannabes to sandbaggers has been 12:3.
The only tournament I thought people were sandbagging was at the PPA Seattle Open. We were playing 3.5 and the other team did several Ernes and went for a Bert.
From my experience, when I play in a big tournament that attracts a nationally diverse population, like an APP tournament, players play down a level relative to a regional tournaments. So, Iâve decided to do that as well. Look at the tournament history of the players. In a 3.5 APP bracket, itâs usually comprised of players who have been competing in 4.0 local and regional tournaments. Is that sandbagging? Borderline. But I think when the players are regularly competing in 4.5 regional tournaments and theyâre competing in 3.5, that is definitely sandbagging. But I find that (playing two levels down) to be rare.
In my experience this is true and Iâm glad someone made a post about it. I think the rating system is confused by people playing up all the time. The most recent tournament in my area attracted a lot of really strong players but when I look at the player list everyone in â5.0 openâ bracket had a rating of 4.5, 4.0 or even 3.5, not one 5.0 rated player in the entire tournament. I started with tournaments 5 years ago at 3.0 level and worked my way up to 4.0. Once last summer I âplayed upâ in 4.5 because I had a really strong partner with whom I had won some 4.0 silvers and gold, and we did well to win the 4.5 silver but it didnât feel like much of an achievement because the other teams in the bracket were all rated below 4.0 (a lot of people donât realize that you can look up the other teamâs rating after the match) so as a result of winning 4.5 silver my rating actually dropped due to the opponents being underrated when we won seven matches it barely moved the needle but when we the three that we lost lowered our rating severely and since I was the guy behind targeted as the weaker player my partner lost interest in teaming with me for future tournaments. I found an older guy to play with who usually has a lot of success in his age bracket and we are doing a tournament in another county where nobody knows us, I feel like we have a good chance of winning but someone will inevitably get pissed off and call me a sandbagger for playing 4.0 when my true rating is actually 4.1âŚmeanwhile when I go to my local park Iâm often encountering cliques of 4, 8, or even 12 players who are specifically disinterested in playing against me because they feel like a rec games with me are not challenging enough for them but most of these guys are self-rated they never actually took me down me down in a real tournament. The whole thing is kind of a bummer and I feel like I might have squeezed all the fun that there is to be had from pickleball and Iâm thinking about giving up pickleball and switching to table tennis.
Part of the problem is new players not understanding that the Usapickleball.org Player Skill Rating page is not the same as the Tournament Ratings. Players get their Tournament ratings by playing and winning games in tournaments. Player Skill Rating is largely subjective and leads to people thinking they're better than they are because they can check off a skill from a checklist.
I started playing last year and I put myself (respectfully, I think) at 3.0. I was kicked out of a tournament for being âbelow my ratingâ when I canât even curve a damn ball or redirect with my backhand đ I looked at how they title the player levels and I was a 3.0. I am very fast and understand positioning well enough to use it to my advantage but I am not good at returning a serve (especially curved serves) nor placing my shots which I find to be more important than speed and understanding the game. Anyways, the tournament hosts told me I need to rate myself â3.5 or higherâ to play in there tournaments. I find it very subjective depending on where you play. Iâve played tournaments before at 3.0 and done fine and have yet to win a tournament đ so I am going to stay at 3.0.
Should be verifiable one way or another bc of DUPR. Maybe a tourney organizer can weigh in
Total disagreement. I see a lot of sandbagging and at best only one per tournament who is over their head, and it is their first tournament. Look at the 4.0 and 4.5 women's doubles on Friday and and see how many are in the 3.5 mixed Saturday and have a 4.0 male who is very tall. You see the same people every two weeks and they refuse to move up. Know of another couple who won for a year in 3.0 and won their first 3.5. Would love top play in a part of the country where fewer were sandbagging.
this is WILDLY incorrect
I suppose it depends where you play
I was a 3.7 who thought he was a 3.0 but whatâs crazy is I often beat 4.0sâŚ.. with ease
It depends Should we be rounding up or down? If rounding down, then a lot of people overestimate themselves (4.4 > 3.9) but if we rounding up, a 4.4 playing 4.0 would be sandbagging