Jeffrey Rosenthal: Chess Streaks and Scandals

Chess Streaks and Scandals

I was asked by the CEO of Chess.com, the world's largest online chess website, to investigate allegations by a former world chess champion that certain long chess winning streaks might be indicative of cheating. This talk will describe how I modelled those chess streaks probabilistically, and what conclusions I reached. It will also explain how the chess world reacted, including public reports, angry videos, hostile comments, accusations of research misconduct, and threats of a lawsuit.

BIO: Jeffrey Rosenthal is a professor of Statistics at the University of Toronto, specialising in Probability theory, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms, and interdisciplinary applications of Statistics. He received his BSc from the University of Toronto in 1988, and his PhD in Mathematics from Harvard University in 1992. He was awarded the 2006 CRM-SSC Prize, the 2007 COPSS Presidents' Award, the 2013 SSC Gold Medal, fellowship of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and of the Royal Society of Canada, and teaching awards at both Harvard and Toronto. He has published over 150 research papers, and five books, including the bestseller Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities. He also does frequent media interviews and public lectures. His web site is probability.ca.