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tournament sand baggers

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Fri, May 15 2009 2:40 PM (17 replies)
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  • HitMan-Fred
    9 Posts
    Thu, Mar 12 2009 8:37 AM

    I didnt know where to actually put this. I am wondering what you monitor. Do you monitor IP's? Do you allow proxies? Do you only monitor accounts? The reason I ask. I been playing since early December. I watch to see the scores in the hack level has been extremely low. Like people are mastering a course. Then making a new account so they can win in the hack division. Like this weeks hack leader a 30. I have to say this is more a hack player. I am happy when I am 1 under. I dont know if you watch to see if new accounts are suddenly tearing up a course or not. It doesnt seem very logical that every week the winning scores for a hack are 5, 6 or more under par. I am not the best player, but this just seems like you have some people who are cheating the system and taking away from us people who enter tournaments to see such low scores posted every week. I could be wrong and they may be legit. I help test games for a major company on myspace. I see alot of cheating. Just thought I would convey my concerns to make game play fair for all. So if a new account registers and suddenly starts shooting 3 to 5 under. That should be cause for concern. Because that is why I wont pay money to enter a tournament because of a lot of people shooting 4 to 6 under par. I have no chance to ever win.

  • claremoreblue
    2,322 Posts
    Thu, Mar 12 2009 10:20 AM

     

    It is monitered fred, they let everyone know that in January I think. It is a dq for having more than one account. I also noticed that you posted a 33 today!! Good shooting, but we know you didn't cheat to get it. It's hard to win anything on here. The competition is very high. Keep trying, you'll do better.

  • HitMan-Fred
    9 Posts
    Thu, Mar 12 2009 10:29 AM

    you missed my ugly scores lol.....the greens are really funny. If i could learn to putt I might make 5 under lol. Thanks for the input. I will say yes the competition here is very high. Good Job also to WGT for making sure that cheating is kept to a minimum.

  • marioh
    1,055 Posts
    Thu, Mar 12 2009 10:33 AM

    Don't give up hope TS.

    There was a point where I also thought I had no chance of ever winning a tournament.   Especially once I moved up to the amateur level.  

    But all you need to see are my trophies and career winnings to see that one can improve their game here, and be somewhat successful in tournaments.

  • tibbets
    1,043 Posts
    Thu, Mar 12 2009 11:02 AM

     Actually, cheating is indeed running rampant through the ranks of the game.  Contrary to what was said above, there is little monitoring going on at all for this activity.  I've had to personally report over a half dozen such people with multiple accounts.  Every week you can see them across the leaderboard in both Hack and Amateur tiers. 

    The problem is, you can monitor by IP, but since there could be more than one person playing at the same house, it's not definitive proof of the same person playing with multiple accounts.  Anyone can create multiple email accounts to go along with their numerous WGT accounts, and therefore can enter tournaments many times.  Most of these accounts are 'flash-in-the-pan', meaning they have incredible results right off the bat and then you never hear or see from them again, most likely because another account has been created to keep from drawing too much attention.

    In the Hack division there is a ton of sandbagging that goes on as well.  It becomes obvious when you see great score after great score followed by a huge score to keep the average above the Amateur cut off line.  No decisive way to deal with it quite yet other than to call people on it when you see it, just like in real golf.

    While virtual golf is different from real golf,  this page here describes the odds involved in beating your average in a tournament, created by Dean Knuth, Director of Handicapping of the USGA and a total math whiz.   It's not entirely applicable to the game we play here, but it does give you an idea of what kind of odds it takes for someone to shoot even 4 strokes beneath their average.  Let's just say it shouldn't happen very often at all, and if you see it happening consistently for someone in the tournaments, chances are they are sandbagging.  How you respond from there is your call...

  • AvatarLee
    1,644 Posts
    Thu, Mar 12 2009 12:47 PM

    I hope I'm not the only one that finds it extremely odd that the ENTIRE top 10 leaderboard for the the Hack tier is at the same *magical* average of 69.18....

    WGT... I would like to suggest an alternate way of promotion to the next tier that may aid in the issue of sand bagging the Hack tourneys.  

    First of all, rather than a magical number (like say 69.00) take a certain percentage of your subscription base with the lowest averages, so for example the lowest 25% (I'm guessing at the value) of players by average are promoted to the next tier.  That way the actual 'cut line' is not known.   (*Side note:  you'd probably need to look at a Minimum # of Ranked rounds for this system as to not skew the cut line with bogus accounts.)

    The next step would be to institute a minimum # of Ranked rounds recorded for entry into tournaments... this would translate into more time that the people would need to invest to 'cheat' the system.  

    The last step would need to wait until another tier is introduced... but it would involve seriously scaling down the prize values of the lowest tier to discourage 'hovering'.  This last point may be hard because it actually goes against any kind of revenue model that promotes "buy-in" tournaments, as there would be little incentive to actually pay to win very little, but it would force players to play their way to the level that could get the better prizes.

    Just some food for thought, 

    Happy Golfing!

    Lee

     

    P.S. not sure what's up with the weird font size in this post....

  • HitMan-Fred
    9 Posts
    Thu, Mar 12 2009 1:11 PM

    I must say I didnt even check into that. You point out a very good system. I will throw one out there for them. You want a winning system that is almost fail safe. You implement tourney system. Just like in the pros. Once you have mastered hack and placed in the top 100(0) (dont know how many active players you have) X amount of times you then move to the next tier. It takes out all the combined scores. Since scores are easily manipulated by humans. This making someone with an average score of 74 and can be tiers higher than your system. That being because they have shown that they have the ability to compete with people of a higher class. It takes the sand bagging out of the game. It puts the game more into prespective. If you show you can win then you should move up to where you are challenged instead of dominating lower tiered players.

     

  • nivlac
    2,188 Posts
    Thu, Mar 12 2009 1:51 PM

    There are some very good suggestions in this thread that I'd like to see implemented.

  • BiRdyKiNg
    30 Posts
    Thu, Mar 12 2009 2:48 PM

     

    Bottom line is these people should be called on the carpet...i've done it before only to have management tell me this isn't the proper place to accuse people of cheating.......my question is.....what and where is the right forum.  I guarantee after I called out 5-6-7 ppl on here after combing thru a tourney leaderboard, there was nothing done about it, other than me being told not to call out people.  Well I think it is extremely obvious when I look at a leader board and see 3 previous rounds shot and no trophies yet that account is 3rd in the tourney....its a cheater, a bogus account. 

    As far as 69 being the cut off...dunno about others but i was 69.3 when i was switched to amateur...not below 69. 

    I don't know how one can be accused of cheating at amateur tier other than quitting out all the time to lower the number next to their name.  I find it humorous how many times I am playing someone and they are shocked that I am always willing to post a round...good or bad.  I tried to play with someone with a 62.??  We started....his first hole sucked..second hole bad drive..suddenly  he quits and reinvites me.  I think..well ok...people probably do this...dunno....start again.....another bad start....another quit and reinvite.....this time i am a little annoyed.  We start a 3rd time.....I go birdie birdie he goes par par.....quits and tries to reinvite...i decline and took guy off my friends list.  I went from fairly excited to play someone with a 62 average(best I had played against) to wondering how many others have fake numbers next to their avatars...and wondering why it really matters.  Hell I posted a 44 last week.....the effects it had on my average were gone in 24 hours. 

    To eliminate cheating in tourneys.....I'd make it so people have to establish a handicap to play.....in other words.....have at least 20 rounds posted. This would make it a lot of work for someone to have a dummy account to play tourney's with. Also,make it so if you score a 33 of better in a tourney, you are auto bumped to amateur rank.  

    There will always be people who try to buck the system by cheating.  WGT does need to take a much more active roll in eliminating it.  IT IS VERY EASY TO DO.....want me to do it...I will volunteer.  Take 2 minutes to look at the leaderboard.  Look for guys with 0-1-2 trophies and a 33 posted...they are cheatin'.  The learning curve isn't that long in this game, but I do know It is about impossible not to accumulate trophies before I start shooting 2-3-4 under par.

    Rant off

    Birdyking

  • WGTadmin
    1,166 Posts
    Thu, Mar 12 2009 4:42 PM

     Thank you for the suggestions!  We do monitor the leaderboards as best we can to catch cheaters.  Your suggestions are all good ones and we will carefully consider them as we build out the product.

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