Did the Soviets collude? A statistical analysis of championship chess 1940-1978
Abstract
We expand the set of outcomes considered by the tournament literature to include draws and use games from post-war chess tournaments to see whether strategic behavior can be important in such scenarios. In particular, we examine whether players from the former Soviet Union acted as a cartel in international all-play-all tournaments - intentionally drawing against one another in order to focus effort on non-Soviet opponents - to maximize the chance of some Soviet winning. Using data from international qualifying tournaments as well as USSR national tournaments, we consider several tests for collusion. Our results are inconsistent with Soviet competition but consistent with Soviet draw-collusion that yielded substantial benefits to the cartel. Simulations of the period's five premier international competitions (the FIDE Candidates tournaments) suggest that the observed Soviet sweep was a 60%-probability event under collusion but only a 25%-probability event had the Soviet players not colluded.Download Info
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Bibliographic Info
Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.
Volume (Year): 70 (2009)
Issue (Month): 1-2 (May)
Pages: 10-21
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Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:70:y:2009:i:1-2:p:10-21
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For corrections or technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Jeroen Loos).
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Keywords: Tournaments Draw strategy Collusion Cartels Chess Sports economics;References
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Gränsmark, Patrik, 2010. "A Rib Less Makes you Consistent but Impatient: A Gender Comparison of Expert Chess Players," Working Paper Series 5/2010, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
- Gränsmark, Patrik, 2010. "Social Screening and Cooperation Among Expert Chess Players," Working Paper Series 4/2010, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
- Gerdes, Christer & Gränsmark, Patrik & Rosholm, Michael, 2011. "Chicken or Checkin'? Rational Learning in Repeated Chess Games," IZA Discussion Papers 5862, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
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