The lions–foxes dilemma: The case of chess tournaments

In various contexts, people can choose between joining a prestigious competition or a less prestigious one. Their relative position is likely to be lower in the former than in the latter, presenting them with a dilemma. This study is one of the first to empirically examine such choices and their implications in the context of sporting competitions, specifically chess tournaments in Israel. In chess tournaments, players of medium ranking are often given a choice: to compete against stronger opponents in the main tournament (and likely be at “the back of a pride of lions”) or to compete against weaker opponents in the secondary tournament (and likely be at “the head of a pack of foxes”). Using official chess results provided by the Israeli Chess Federation, we identified the players who were in a position to choose between participating in a main and a secondary tournament from 2010 through 2017. We found that even after controlling for chess ratings and opponents’ levels (as well as age, gender, experience, momentum, and the effect of the time-control factor), players who chose to participate in the secondary tournament performed 11.8% better than those who chose to participate in the main tournament. Apparently, in the context we studied, one is better off at the head of a pack of foxes than at the back of a pride of lions.