Bobby Fischer, the chess genius and super-self-hating-Jew, is such a ranter that it might seem sensible to have brushed aside his long-ago charges that Soviet chess players used to collude to ensure a Soviet champion in international chess competitions.
But the economists Charles Moul and John Nye, both of Washington University in St. Louis, argue convincingly that the Soviets did just that. In the famed Candidates tournaments, they argue, Soviet players would intentionally play each other to a draw and then try really hard to beat non-Soviets.
In their paper “Did the Soviets Collude?: A Statistical Analysis of Championship Chess 1940-1964,” Moul and Nye write this: “[T]he finding that the Soviets were more likely to draw amongst themselves in critical FIDE tournaments than they were when playing other masters should not come as a surprise. But our paper has been the first to provide strong statistical evidence in support of this result … The likelihood that a Soviet player would have won every single Candidates tournament up to 1963 was less than one out of four under an assumption of no collusion, but was higher than three out of four when the possibility of draw collusion is factored in.”
The Moul-Nye analysis is reminiscent of the analysis used by Levitt and Mark Duggan to show how sumo wrestlers collude. And, as for Bobby Fischer, we are reminded once again that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that someone isn’t out to get you.
7 Comments
Typo in the post
— CraigIn bicycle racing the less able members of a team will pull for the star at the cost of their own positions, even in races that are ostensibly “individual”. In car racing, likewise, there’s plenty of incidents with the also-ran team drivers allowing the frontrunner on the scoreboard to pass to improve the team standing.
People at the time of course saw themselves as playing for a “team” in practice if not formally - and the whole study is premised on a cold war East-West competition. So not very surprising then that you’d see the same kind of team collaboration dynamics arising here as in other competitions.
Rather more instersting would be to use the data to go the other way - to find out what other “teams” people saw themselves as belonging to. Did you have collusion among US players, among French players and so on? Did these coalesce into one “superteam” when playing against “the eastern bloc” or did they stay as separate country teams? Did a solid “eastern bloc” team form or did the separate states still keep to themselves when faced with “the west”?
You might be able to make a neat hierarchical structure describing what kind of allegiances people really saw themselves as having during the period, rather than what official politics assumed.
— JanneMWhen raw data will be collected suspect are selected “factal dates, times, places results: win, loss, draw in chess.”. If you will view ALL RECORDED RESULTS FROM Russians’ chess games not only “high profile” ones. Your results are mis-collected, ill concieved stat tests as statisticians, and dangerous harm to historical standings of Russia’s chess players. All may seem “fixed” in your Worldcom, Enron, Long Term Capital tricks on shareholders. Therefore, when listing all frauds upon public we will be ill advised to put a “rock” in western stock markets or hedge funds. Using your models. Those chess games where not “fixed”, however.
— princesaud1Re: Bobby Fisher’s charges that Russians cheated during Chess Tournaments in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s
(1) It is an improper method of ad hominem attack to undermine what Bobby Fischer said when he was in his 20s in the 1960s based on his current state of mind and actions now that he is well advanced in age and apparently deteriorated of mind. At the time Fischer made his attacks on the Soviets, he was the top-rated chess player in the world, and the only US player in the world willing to stand up to Soviet bullying. Moreover, Fischer was willing to stand up to the Soviets at a time when the US was as a matter of policy engaged in all sorts of treaties and weapons reductions that would have instituted soviet control over eastern europe etc forever. President Nixon himself famously endorsed Fischer’s bid for chess supremacy in 1972 as part of his diplomacy over Hanoi and the Vietnam accords or Fishcher could never have overcome the Soviet control of FIDE.
(2) Bob Dylan from 1978-1984 also went through a period of ranting and Jew hating, during which he released a series of “born again” albums which are critical of jews and urge everyone to find Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Does this discredit everything that Bob Dylan ever said or did in his entire life or in his entire art? Is he a better or saner man than Fischer because he abandoned those views and made peace with the Jewish community by resuming Judaism? Do we really know whether Dylan really is Jewish to this day? After all, he kept his marriage to his black evangelical back up singer secret until the publication of his memoirs recently. It doesn’t stand to reason that they had a jewish wedding.
Should we lump in Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx in there too since they also ranted and were agnostic non-practicing Jews?
(3) The studies which show that there was cheating going on at chess tournaments (or collusion as to draws between members of the same russian team) was already out there and studied statistically by Fischer and his American teammates 40 plus years ago; it was the statistics that Fischer based his conclusions on, if you actually read what he wrote about the Russians’ practices. What he actually wrote was that if you compare statistically the rate of drawing between players of different countries with the rate of drawing between players both from Russia, the rate of draws between Russians appears too high and non-random, as well as draws appearing to occur in winning and/or losing as opposed to drawn positions.
Consequently, the newer research, while beautiful, is not altogether novel.
(4) The comments by those supra who do not believe the russians fixed games are nuts. There is now not merely evidence that the Russians fixed games, but excellent evidence that the Russians forced certain of their own champions–Paul Keres comes to mind–not to compete for the world championship–even though Keres was stronger than Bronstein, Smyslov or Botvinnik–and influenced outright the outcome of the matches involving Bronstein, Botvinnik and Smyslov in the 40s and 50s. They discriminated against the Armenian champions Petrosian and Kasparov and never allowed any Jewish or part-Jewish players to compete at the highest levels. They certainly were involved in undermining Viktor Korchnoi’s chances at the World Championship the first time he played Karpov, as is well-documented, as they made threats against the lives of Korchnoi’s children and family and made these threats just as Korchnoi had Karpov on the ropes.
The evidence against the Russians is overwhelming, does not depend on Fischer alone, and is hardly confined to statistical analysis. If they were running the NFL, the Las Vegas bookies would own every player through their own personal commissar. Thank goodness for the fall of communism in Russia.
Since the late 80s, many of these Russian grandmasters have come to the US to play for us, immensely strenghthening American chess, and also bringing their skills as mathematicians, physicists and programmers on the floors of Wall Street in some cases.
–art kyriazis, in search of bobby fischer
— RyanHoward1bno, Fischer was nuts because he accused the Russians of using mind control on him (missing the irony of his assertion!)
— frankendufI’m an avid tournament chess player, and I’ve noticed that Russians tend to have a more draw-oriented playing style than others (I don’t mean to be stereotypical, but it’s just a fact… just like Americans play basketball more aggressively than Russians, it seems that Americans play chess more aggressively than Russians). When you put two draw-ish players together, they’ll have a much higher incidence of draws than when you have anybody playing against a more aggressive player. For instance, I almost never draw games (because I’m an unusually aggressive player)… even if I play 20 people who each typically draw 50% of their games, I doubt that I’d end up with more htan 1-2 draws. But if draw-ish players play each other, they’ll almost always draw.
Anyway, my point is that even though I’m sure that there were plenty of intentional draws between Soviets, I think we should also consider that the higher incidence of such draws may be (at least partially) attributable to their playing style.
— ShanWhile I’m certainly no expert on Soviet cold war chess, another possible explanation for this seeming statistical anomaly is the fact that the Russians no doubt competed against each other much more frequently than they did against Americans, thus becoming more familiar with each others style of play and hence more able to predict their opponents next move. When you have two chess players who know what each will do, are you not more likely to end in a draw?
— gary kasparov