Time Pressure and Strategic Risk-Taking in Professional Chess

Johannes Carow () and Niklas Witzig ()
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Johannes Carow: Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Niklas Witzig: Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

No 2404, Working Papers from Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

Abstract: We study the impact of time pressure on strategic risk-taking of professional chess players. We propose a novel machine-learning-based measure for the degree of strategic risk of a single chess move and apply this measure to the 2013-2023 FIDE Chess World Cups that allow for plausibly exogenous variation in thinking time. Our results indicate that time pressure leads chess players to opt for more risk-averse moves. We additionally provide correlational evidence for strategic loss aversion, a tendency for risky moves after a mistake/ in a disadvantageous position. This suggests that high-proficiency decision-makers in highstake situations react to time pressure and contextual factors more broadly. We discuss the origins and implication of this finding in our setting.

Keywords: Chess; Risk; Time Pressure; Loss Aversion; Machine Learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C26 C45 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 61 pages
Date: 2024-02-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-cbe, nep-cmp, nep-rmg, nep-spo and nep-upt
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https://download.uni-mainz.de/RePEc/pdf/Discussion_Paper_2404.pdf First version, 2024 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jgu:wpaper:2404

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