Checkmate: Exploring backward induction among chess players

Steven Levitt, John List and Sally Sadoff

Artefactual Field Experiments from The Field Experiments Website

Abstract: Although backward induction is a cornerstone of game theory, most laboratory experiments have found that agents are not able to successfully backward induct. We analyze the play of world-class chess players in the centipede game, which is ill-suited for testing backward induction, and in pure backward induction games--Race to 100 games. We find that chess players almost never play the backward induction equilibrium in the centipede game, but many properly backward induct in the Race to 100 games. We find no systematic within-subject relationship between choices in the centipede game and performance in pure backward induction games.

Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00081.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Checkmate: Exploring Backward Induction among Chess Players (2011)
Working Paper: Checkmate: Exploring Backward Induction Among Chess Players (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:feb:artefa:00081

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Artefactual Field Experiments from The Field Experiments Website
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Francesca Pagnotta ().