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Counterintuitive economics of a chess tournament

davidsmerdon.com

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Re: Counterintuitive economics of a chess tournament

#31

Post by LargeWu »

jstanley wrote: post #23
madsravn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. But this article states a few reasons, I think are a valid, why a female league is necessary: http://www.chessblog.com/2009/10/abolish-womens-itles-ridicu...

From that article: > Nobody has ever said that WGM is equivalent to GM, everybody knows it's not the case, WGM is just a step towards IM then GM, to make sure the player does not lose interest as it is so hard to attain the higher titles. That's all well and good, but what prize is there to encourage men who are at the level of WGM? Why is no prize needed for men?

That prize isn't needed, as evidenced by the overwhelming gender imbalance in chess.

Re: Counterintuitive economics of a chess tournament

#32

Post by mikeash »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #24
throwaeayBan wrote: post #3

"Top female Prize " and... no top male prize...We can never be equal while there is any discrimination even when it is possitive. And please don't start with "we need more women in chess thus...". No, we need good players in ches and not insert anything here . And tell, what forces us to improve more than competition? Why play better when you will get prize anyway?

I don't appreciate that this is being downvoted and flagged into oblivion. It's frustrating that we Hacker News citizens seem to have adopted a list of taboo topics that we aren't allowed to discuss - such as anything related to discrimination against a non-minority. I think this is an interesting discussion to have, and personally I wonder if segregating chess marginalizes the women, too. The atmosphere around this…

I find that sort of comment to be extremely counterproductive, because it's totally off the original topic and it seems to be the result of searching for some link to controversy and then pouncing on whatever's found.

I don't really like clicking on the comments for an article about the economics of a chess tournament to find somebody whining about a prize for women players that isn't even mentioned in that article. It's just uncouth. Even if such prizes are a bad idea, there's not worth derailing the conversation, and it's rude to track down some nitpicky complaint to jump on.

Re: Counterintuitive economics of a chess tournament

#33

Post by rm999 »

This stuck out to me:

> Even under some very tolerant assumptions, the expected payoff from playing on, for either player, was greater than the expected payoff from accepting the repetition.

Payoff, sure. But it's well-known that the marginal utility of money is not linear, which means people tend to value money differently based on how much of it they have (poor people value a dollar more than rich people). This indirectly means some level of risk aversion is actually an optimal choice. Turning down a gamble, even if the expected payout is positive, can be rational.

This is well studied in economic theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Morgenster...

Re: Counterintuitive economics of a chess tournament

#34

Post by jstanley »

LargeWu wrote: post #31
jstanley wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that article: > Nobody has ever said that WGM is equivalent to GM, everybody knows it's not the case, WGM is just a step towards IM then GM, to make sure the player does not lose interest as it is so hard to attain the higher titles. That's all well and good, but what prize is there to encourage men who are at the level of WGM? Why is no prize needed for men?

That prize isn't needed, as evidenced by the overwhelming gender imbalance in chess.

It isn't needed to make "more men" play chess. But for an individual, it's pretty unfair: "She's no better than me, but she is a WGM and I am nothing".

Re: Counterintuitive economics of a chess tournament

#35

Post by minority-one »

mikeash wrote: post #32
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't appreciate that this is being downvoted and flagged into oblivion. It's frustrating that we Hacker News citizens seem to have adopted a list of taboo topics that we aren't allowed to discuss - such as anything related to discrimination against a non-minority. I think this is an interesting discussion to have, and personally I wonder if segregating chess marginalizes the women, too. The atmosphere around this…

I find that sort of comment to be extremely counterproductive, because it's totally off the original topic and it seems to be the result of searching for some link to controversy and then pouncing on whatever's found. I don't really like clicking on the comments for an article about the economics of a chess tournament to find somebody whining about a prize for women players that isn't even mentioned in that article.…

How is it derailing the conversation? Are we keeping you from having your arguments in other branches of the comment section?

Why should there be a section for people who want to talk about the aspects you want to talk about, but not a section for stuff I and others want to talk about?

I understand you might not like to click on a chess article to find something else being discussed. Well, that happens to all of us in different ways. The way I deal with it is, I simply skip the comment branches that I don't care for.

Re: Counterintuitive economics of a chess tournament

#36

Post by minority-one »

bluecalm wrote: post #27
throwaeayBan wrote: post #3

"Top female Prize " and... no top male prize...We can never be equal while there is any discrimination even when it is possitive. And please don't start with "we need more women in chess thus...". No, we need good players in ches and not insert anything here . And tell, what forces us to improve more than competition? Why play better when you will get prize anyway?

I upvoted you because you have the right sentiment imo. Special prices for black people or people with red hair would be ridiculous and those groups are even more underrepresented than women are. The thing is though that women have it harder in chess the same way as in boxing, tennis or sprinting. People try to run circles about the fact that there are very significant biological differences which influence performan…

And yet you and other commenters keep getting downvoted because many old-time HN'ers with the ability to downvote seem to have a hard time coming to grips with the fact that men and women have different capabilities.

Notice how you only see the downvotes, not anyone trying to explain how is it that if men and women are equally capable, that only 1 in the top 100 chess players is a woman, and only 18 in the top 1000 are women.

Re: Counterintuitive economics of a chess tournament

#37

Post by resu_nimda »

jstanley wrote: post #34
LargeWu wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That prize isn't needed, as evidenced by the overwhelming gender imbalance in chess.

It isn't needed to make "more men" play chess. But for an individual, it's pretty unfair: "She's no better than me, but she is a WGM and I am nothing".

Lol. Women and all their unfair advantages over men, right? It's tough for a guy out here...

Women are consistently and institutionally disadvantaged across the board. Why do so many men fail to understand this? For the record I'm a man, and I see women face issues on a daily basis that I have never had to deal with, so by all means, give them a prize.

Re: Counterintuitive economics of a chess tournament

#38

Post by nerd_stuff »

Without invoking the maximization of utility we could use game theory and ask if the players were simply minimizing their maximum regret. It was during the qualification rounds, not the finals. It looks like they each preferred taking an advantage or a draw (chosen by their opponent) over playing against a world-class player at a slight disadvantage.

Nakamura's shown that he'll play interesting and sometimes dubious moves because he wants chess to be more entertaining for spectators. He spends a lot of time playing online against weaker players so they can have the memory of that one time they played against one of the best. He's done so much for chess and its popularity that if he takes an early draw once in a while he gets the benefit of the doubt.

Re: Counterintuitive economics of a chess tournament

#39

Post by jstanley »

resu_nimda wrote: post #37
jstanley wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't needed to make "more men" play chess. But for an individual, it's pretty unfair: "She's no better than me, but she is a WGM and I am nothing".

Lol. Women and all their unfair advantages over men, right? It's tough for a guy out here... Women are consistently and institutionally disadvantaged across the board. Why do so many men fail to understand this? For the record I'm a man, and I see women face issues on a daily basis that I have never had to deal with, so by all means, give them a prize.

Making unfairness in new places isn't decreasing the amount of unfairness in the world, it's increasing it.

Re: Counterintuitive economics of a chess tournament

#40

Post by drdeca »

jstanley wrote: post #34
LargeWu wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That prize isn't needed, as evidenced by the overwhelming gender imbalance in chess.

It isn't needed to make "more men" play chess. But for an individual, it's pretty unfair: "She's no better than me, but she is a WGM and I am nothing".

Well, what is there to stop one from making an equivalent thing?

Then, if there isn't one, why not?

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