Reverse sandbagging
 

As far as I can tell, guys playing up above their ability/rating is much more prevalent than sandbagging. Why do some TD's refuse to acknowledge divisions below intermediate ?
Discuss.

Reverse sandbagging
 

As far as I can tell, guys playing up above their ability/rating is much more prevalent than sandbagging. Why do some TD's refuse to acknowledge divisions below intermediate and why will some play up anyway ?
Discuss.

divisionS?

What's below Rec..?

novice

I don't get it. The divisions are set by a max rating, not a min rating. Consider it extra money for the pool.

Playing up is a great learning opportunity. If you don't care about winning, but about getting better, then play with better people.

I think the Chicago and Southeastern Wisconsin area is a good model for how well offering those lower divisions can work. They get huge turnouts in all 4 am divisions and get a much higher portion of players playing in divisions appropriate to their rating. I do wish that the names would go away and we could just refer to them by their division codes like MA1 etc. I think that the rec and novice designations end up keeping people out of those divisions out of pride, and also keep some TDs from offering them out of a sense that "novice" and "recreational" players don't belong in tournaments.

Good stuff. Pride is definitely a big part of the equation round here. Heck,most un-sanctioned stuff locally is pro and am, with rec level players padding the pro pool and playing with friends.

Pride?

I play in the "You suck" division. I don't care if you call it Rec, or MA3, or whatever. The only pride I'll have is when I can move up, and improve my game.

Pro-am is good enough for me

I think that is short-term thinking. Novices improve to rec, rec might improve to adv...what's the incentive for anyone below 930 to play ?