Math & Sports: Duplicate Bridge Ratings and Diagonally Dominant Matrices
TS Michael
United States Naval Academy

Abstract:

The current method to assign ratings to individual bridge players is unsatisfactory. We propose a new method that performs better. The new ratings method relies on ideas from undergraduate mathematics, but the implementation requires a theorem from the frontier of matrix theory. The matrix theorem is best understood combinatorially, and the bridge rating scenario provides good way to see why the matrix theorem is true. We show how our rating method works using real-world data. This talk is accessible to first-year graduate students in mathematics and statistics.

(Joint research with Tom Quint.)