The Art of Sandbagging

Sandbagging in poker is the opposite of a bluff: You try to make yourself look weaker than you really are. This post will explain when and where to use this strategy and follow up with some personal examples of how to win with it.

Lets assume your long term goal is to win an upcoming tournament and you have an opportunity to play against the toughest competitor beforehand. You can use this time to make your opponent think they know how to beat you. You do this by intentionally playing worse than you really will in the tournament.

When you play that person, they will come into the fight with a strategy based on the way you pretended to play. When nothing he planned works, it will be completely demoralizing and surprising to him. Generally, a tournament match doesn't last long enough to recover from this shock.

Here are some real examples I've used in the past: A very important Tekken 4 tournament was coming up and the night before, I played against the person I was most worried about. Every time he threw me or jabbed me (you beat these by ducking) I let it damage me. I intentionally picked these moves because my character had very damaging moves that go under attacks. Naturally, when we played in the tournament, he ended up using the exact opposite strategy against me that he should have, and lost.

The night before a big Soul Calibur 3 tournament, I played some of the people I was most concerned about. My character happened to have very annoying pokes that were hard to interrupt. During these sessions, I played super aggressively and used these pokes whenever possible. Here you can see my goal wasn't to look worse than I was, just that 1) my character has really annoying pokes 2) the pokes are very effective. I believe these people spent the rest of their time trying to figure out how to beat the combinations I was using.

But, during the matches that mattered, these people were trying to beat an exchange that was never coming. I switched my strategy to one of "wait and interrupt". They kept on trying to bait me into poking them and I kept on backing up and keeping them out. After the tournament, this person wanted to play me again to prove to himself (and others that watched) that he figured out how to beat me.

Although he didn't win the tournament, he believed that if he played me again, things would go very differently. Of course, he had no idea that I sandbagged after the tournament, too. :)

You are here. You should be here...

In a fight, where is the best place to stand? That depends.

If you're attacking, the best place to be is barely in range. Here, your opponent will think he's safe when he's not. He'll get hit by moves he otherwise wouldn't because of a false sense of security. At this range, even if he does block, you are harder to retaliate against because you're often out of range.

If you're defending, the best place to be is barely out of range. Here, your opponent will think he can hit you when he can't. He'll be baited to attack when he shouldn't. Also, you limit his attacks to the ones he thinks can reach.

Of course, you're also limited to your long-reaching moves when you're in the ideal attacking position. That is why you should think of this as a principle rather than a rule: If your sole strategy is to stay in the ideal attacking range, you'll become too predictable.

The Unfettered Mind

There is a book on my shelf called "The Unfettered Mind" by Takuan Soho. Of all the strategy books I own, this one helped me the least. But, it did have one very good lesson. It teaches you about the final stage of mastering a skill that requires reflexes. Here are the stages for a fighting game:

1. It's your first time. You focus intensely on every little detail you're doing. In fighting game terms, this translates into learning how to use the controls.
2. You've learned the controls and now you focus on your character's moves. You spend a lot of time remembering your possibilities.
   
3. You've memorized all your character's moves, now you focus on interesting combinations of how to use them.
4. You've learned interesting combinations of how to use your moves. Now you focus on using them at the right time.
5. You now know when to use your combinations. You stop focusing all together. The game is now part of your muscle memory. Everything comes naturally without you having to think about it.

At stage 5, you've reached The Unfettered Mind. Many players don't even know it exists or that they'd improve if they got there. Here's why the unfocused mind is important:

Lets say you are in the middle of a battle and all the sudden you think, "He's probably going to do x". At that moment, you've focused on something. You've given yourself something to anticipate, a possibility to look for.

The problem is, when you focus on one thing, you've just biased your brain. You've told it that there's > 50% chance that x will occur. But, the reality is, there are many things your opponent can do at any time. Focusing on one thing will slow your reaction time down and, even worse, set yourself up to be surprised by anything that is not x. You never want to be in a position where you are surprised.

The best way to approach the game is to think without thinking. You're ready at all times but not expecting anything. This attitude makes you much harder to surprise and greatly increases your response time.