Sandbagging is very real and irritating.
I play on an APA team. I am a SL7, I have been for quite some time. I try to win every match I play. When I first joined the league ( over 16 years ago) I naively thought you were supposed to try and play your best and try to win every match. I thought that raising your level of play and your handicap was something to be proud of. It shows that you have learned something and have gained some knowledge from all the time you have spent playing pool. Somewhere along the line I leaerned I was mistaken.
I still cringe when I hear somebody profess very proudly " I have been playing in the league for 5 years and I am still a 4!". I will usually tell them that they have wasted a lot of time and money then! So you are telling me you have played this game prob at least 2 times a week for 5 years, and you are still rated at a very average skill level, AND YOU ARE PROUD OF YOURSELF?
I will tell you that sandbagging is very real, BUT the fact that there is so much sandbagging going on lets a lot of people kid themselves too! I know there are MANY players who DO try their best to win, but when thet lose , just PRETEND they were in fact sandbagging. They use it as a cop out for losing. " Well, I don't want to go up to a 4, so I lost". Bullshit. I know there are a lot of players who secretly would love to be a higher ranked handicap, but when thet fail they pass it off as dumping for their team. Ask all of these guys when the last time their team finished near the top in the last five years. When they stop and think about it, and realize the answer is never, ask them again why they are bothering to dump then? It is a convenient excuse for poor play, and not owning your performance. It is the same as the guy who always loses and acts as though he is hustling. Oddly enough you NEVER see this guy in action! The whole point of a hustle or sandbagging is a PAYOFF. If there is never a payoff, why are you going through all that trouble?
Just thought I would throw in another aspect of the sandbagging that bugs me a bit. I still just show up and play to win, even though it is frustrating to have to give up handicaps to evenly matched players. I still usually do just fine even with my handicap.
When I am having an off night, I usually joke that I am just worried about my handicap going up!
Jw