I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Economics at King’s College London. My research focuses on game theory and its applications, particularly in sports and political economy, and has appeared in leading international journals.
Some of my research has reached a broader audience and has been covered by a range of news outlets and general-interest publications, including The Sunday Times, New Scientist, New in Chess, Plus Magazine, Chess.com, ChessBase, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, USA Today, Futurity, The Indian Express, and BBC Radio 5 Live.
I am active on social media and occasionally engage with a wider audience. Some of my research has been seen by millions worldwide. For example, a video by GothamChess referencing my work has received over one million views: YouTube.
A central focus of my work is on foundational problems in game theory. I am particularly interested in solution concepts for strategic situations involving competition, cooperation, or both. I introduced the solution concept of optimin, which extends von Neumann’s maximin approach from zero-sum to general-sum games. One property of optimin that I find especially noteworthy is the following: for every Nash equilibrium in any game, there exists an optimin in which all players not only receive weakly higher payoffs than under the Nash equilibrium, but also guarantee weakly higher payoffs under any unilateral and profitable deviation by other players.
Alongside theory, I am interested in direct applications of game theory and economic theory to real-world problems. A significant influence on this part of my work has been Steven J. Brams, with whom I have co-authored multiple articles.
Since 2023, I have been leading the Game Theory Corner at Norway Chess, one of the strongest chess tournaments in the world: Norway Chess.
Related to this, I developed the Norway Chess Bar, a chess evaluation algorithm that incorporates human elements such as time pressure. Norway Chess founder Kjell Madland shared his vision for such a tool with me when we first met. The Bar has received thoughtful feedback from grandmasters and commentators, including five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand and Peter Heine Nielsen, long-time coach of Magnus Carlsen. It made its public debut at the 2025 Norway Chess tournament, which was broadcast internationally, and I appeared as a guest on several broadcasts, including commentary alongside Anand.
I have also proposed a theory of intelligence in games, inspired by Magnus Carlsen’s playing style. After developing the theory, I applied it to an analysis of all World Chess Championship games since 1886. This analysis suggests that Carlsen ranks highest in terms of game intelligence, despite not being the most accurate player according to the top chess engine.
I have co-authored several papers on the Catch-Up rules in sports and the Catch-Up game. This work received international coverage, and the Catch-Up game was patented by New York University and Maastricht University. More recently, I have become interested in the formalization of game theory using the Lean programming language. My first project in this area formalizes the Catch-Up game and its conjecture and is available in the Google DeepMind Formal Conjecture Repository: Formal Conjectures repository.
I enjoy bringing people together around shared research interests and regularly organize, contribute to, or participate in events that foster collaboration and exchange across disciplines. I welcome PhD students interested in game theory and its applications across areas such as sports, political economy, artificial intelligence, fairness, cooperation, and conflict.
My Erdos number is 3, via Steven J. Brams, Peter C. Fishburn, and Paul Erdos.