OK, this may develop into a debate, in which case, please move it mods, but until then…
OK. You are in a team league, with handicap, and you are totally dominating a game, say in the 8th or 9th frame. To increase your handicap (lower your average for future times) is it OK to tank a couple frames? I mean, if you are already winning, why not just throw a couple of gutter balls to keep your average lower (and hence, get a couple extra handicap points next week perhaps)? Now, in the middle of the season or whatnot, it won’t payback as much, due to the higher number of games bowled, but if one were to do this fairly regularly, is this legit? And I’m not saying gutter balls per se, but maybe miss a spare or two.
No, it’s not legit ( it’s called “dumping” or “sandbagging”) , and if it can be proven you could be thrown out of the league or suspended from your sanctioning organization. Whether it can be proven is another story.This is part of the reason some leagues use a match point system- there are points given to the team with more points, and also individual bowlers earn points for beating the person they are matched against,so that a team with lower totals still earns points.
But one night at league I was having a really good first game. I had a 170-something going into the 10th frame. Then I bowled a 8-0; I choked, as per my usual. As I approached my table, I joked to them, “I didn’t want to ruin my handicap”. One of the opposing team’s members glared at me. I realized what he thought, and said, “Honestly, I choke all the time!” My next two games were average and below average, so I think his fears were allayed.
Oh, and here’s something on the OP from the 1994-5 ABC/WIBC rules:
In addition to the above-mentioned, specific rule on the matter, it’s an unwritten rule in any sporting endeavor* that you should always try your best.
(*Or competitive game. Whether bowling is a sport; now there’s a debate topic.)
I don’t know about bolwing but I know people do it in pool leagues and golfers will do it as well. the APA pool league has a slight way around this as people can write letters to the APA and if someone is found to be sandbagging, as was found at my local pool hall they force them to stay at a certain level so they can’t sandbag. also in play-offs they get rid of the lowest rating for males.
I’ve known people to do this and that’s one of the reasons I quit playing in leagues and it ruined pool for me altoghther.
When I was in a pool league, someone suggested that I do the same thing. Of course, back then, I played way too much pool, and it didn’t really matter what my handicap was.
Well, except in football, hockey, basketball, or any timed sport, when your “best” is to run the clock out. Or baseball with the intentional walk and sacrifice…
True enough. In those sports, the clock is a factor with regard to strategy, but the ultimate goal is to win, and activities such as the quarterback “taking a knee” (or, say, an intentional walk in baseball) are all designed toward winning the game in hand.
In a handicapped sport, however, not posting the highest score you can (or lowest score, in the case of golf) to affect your handicap and give yourself an advantage later in a season is unethical, and most sports/games of this kind have rules that state just that.
I seem to recall an NFL team in recent seasons being in a situation where, if they won the last game of the season, they would win their division but play a very talented team in the playoffs that they didn’t match up with well. If they lost, they would still make the playoffs, but as a wild-card, and would face a banged-up team that they would have a much better chance of beating.
There was speculation in the media that it would almost be advantageous for them to lose that last game, but the coach said the team wouldn’t even consider it. IIRC, they won the game.
Let’s talk golf. If I have a tournament next week, am I obligated to try to shoot my lowest score the preseding week? What if I want to work on my driver, tho I know I would have a lower score if I were to use a 3-wood or a long iron off the tee? What if I really want to try going after the pins this week, which may result in a couple of lost balls or otherwise wasted strokes? What if, altho I am keeping my stroke score for handicap purposes, this week I am playing match play, where no matter how badly I blow up, I can only lose each hole once?
I’ve played in several leagues, and while people toss out the term “sandbagger” a lot, I don’t believe it really happens that much. What I really believe happens is some folk are just better under pressure. And some folk don’t really try that hard unless it really matters. They play their best only when it matters. And when it isn’t as important, they essentially mail in their game. I don’t think there is any real problem there, as long as they are fun to golf with.
Oh, I agree that handicapping is a little different… In bowling, for example, if you intentionally establish a low 150 average on some league you don’t care about when you normally bowl 200’s, and then go to tournaments with serious money involved and bowl 200’s consistently, that’s a definite no-no. You’d have a big advantage over someone who played fair. The OP is a restricted case of this.
I was just making a little point on your particular quote.
I used to work at a golf course, and I’d often work on the handicap computer. I’d say you’re largely right. We had about 300 people on the computer, and, out of those 300, only two you could really call sandbaggers. One of the guys I’m thinking of in particular was just way over the top. He’d consistantly shoot 10-12 shots better in tournaments than he did at any other time. Almost every year, he won one flight or another of the Annual Tournament, usually by Tiger Woods-esque margins. Most of the other members knew about it, and were actually quite angry about it, but AFAIK nothing was ever done about him. With him, what annoyed all of us was not so much the fact that he was doing it, but that he’d been doing it for so long–about 20 years according to some accounts. How did he live with himself lifting all those trophies for all those years?
But you’re absolutely right about people who perform well under pressure. And I don’t think that all that many people sandbag.
I don’t know enough about golf to speak about that sport, but it’s not terribly uncommon in bowling for someone to establish a low average in a league and then try to use it in tournaments, or be winning by a lot near the end of the game, and throw balls away (not in the gutter,just deliberately not getting a strike.)to have a lower average later in the season or even for pots and brackets ( which can be worth more over the course of the season than the regular prize fund). You have to have a certain level of skill to be at all successful at it, because it’s every bit as difficult to throw a ball to deliberately leave one pin up as it is to throw a strike,and you can’t just throw gutter balls or miss spares because it’s too obvious.