Sandbagging has a long tradition. Not being a tournament player, I'm not really affected by it in PB. However in past activities I've seen various solutions.
The problem in finding a PB solution is that there is no real way to score a player in an absolute sense. In bowling or golf you have scores that don't reflect people playing defense and it's easy to place a handicap on someone based only on the scores. This does not always work and some golf organizations will only use competitive scores as a measure of ability. But wait, if you are interested in sandbagging and are playing in a competition that you can't win, it would be easy to miss a couple of putts or hit a couple shots out of bounds to fatten your score.
I watched some of the 3.0 PB play up in Concord the other week. In the title match I saw only one player whom I would call 3.0. The rest looked closer to 4.0 to me. The 3.0 player was frequently in the wrong position, couldn't or wouldn't volley a dink. However, she was very consistent at returning dinks - her super power. Her partner was pretty strong and highly active and they blended well together. But 3.0 as a team? I don't think so.
I have no solution and if I were a tournament player, the category that I played in would be an important decision. Now, if everyone does it, then sandbag away!
The tournament directors might make a rule that if you are first or second in your category, then you get an automatic bump into the next level. Which makes a lot of sense in the lower ranks. If you keep winning, you keep going up. Pretty soon everyone is at 5.0! This has some problems, so maybe you have to win twice to go to 4.5 and three times to go to 5.0. It's not clear how well that would work, but it would clear out the lower brackets of the sandbaggers.
I guess we need the actual players to chime in here...
Rich,sandbagging is one negative aspect to tournament play. The USA Pickleball rating system is pretty bad. Angel saw it first hand and so have many others. In non sanctioned events, the sandbagging is even worse because the TD may allow people to self rate and not check their levels in the USA Pickleball data base. In sanctioned events its a bit harder to sandbag but it can still happen. Lots of sandbaggers want that little piece of metal to wear around their necks at the end of the day. I suggest that if a team runs into a sandbagging team, try your best and let the outcome determine what skills you possess and what skills you need to beat a more skillful team.
ReplyDeleteGood point, try to learn from all situations. Hope karma will prevail in the long run. Thanks for the comment.
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