TL;DR
Concentration Inequalities: From Markov to Chernoff: A canonical quantitative trading interview question at olympiad difficulty. Commonly asked at Two Sigma, Citadel, DE Shaw, Jane Street, HRT.
By Valenke Exam Prep Team·Last updated 2026-06-01
olympiadReal Analysis & Inequalities
Concentration Inequalities: From Markov to Chernoff
Asked at: Two Sigma, Citadel, DE Shaw, Jane Street, HRT
Problem
A fair die is rolled times. Let be the sum of all rolls.
(a) Compute and .
(b) Using Chebyshev's inequality, bound .
(c) Using the Central Limit Theorem, estimate .
(d) Using the Chernoff/Hoeffding bound, bound .
(e) Which bound is tightest? Why?
Related concepts
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