Is there any chance that a 1300 rated player can beat a 2700 rated player?

If you agree that for every game Carlsen will play, there exists a sequence of moves that can beat Carlsen.

And if you agree that a monkey, who will move randomly, has a chance to play any move.

Then you can't argue that it is impossible for the monkey to win even if they only play one game.

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I suppose though that the monkey can't move truly randomly. It will favor some types of moves and pieces over others. So I will agree a monkey has no chance.

This argument will similarly defeat monkeys on typewriters. Unless the monkeys are random, then they wont produce everything. E.g. the pattern 2,4,6,8... is infinite and does not itself include many different sets of infinite numbers. So I don't agree that noku's idea is inconsistent if it came from the typewriter idea.

Well note that zero chance and impossible don't mean the same thing. If I throw a dart, it will hit one spot of an infinite amount of possible spots, each of which has a zero chance of occurring (any other assignment of probability would be contradictory, for example saying 1 in a million or 1 in a billion would be a problem because there are more possibilities than a million or billion). Yet I have to hit one; one of those zero probabilities will in fact happen.

So it is what it is. A monkey could beat carlsen ten times in a row, but this possibility isn't a good way of depicting what our reality is like. But it's still a world in which a monkey "could" do this.

Hah, that's a funny observation. I guess infinities screw it all up. Interesting that they sometimes produce a paradox like this, and at other times we can use them to do math that gives solutions in the real world.

btickler... a stipulation was made, tripping, hamstrings etc. is ruled out. Same as a heart attack over the chess board. A useless arguement.

Another stipulation was made: both sides are playing to win, so bribing and other subterfuge doesn't work either.

Not at all; no stipulation breakage here, since you did not follow the criteria.  Comparing a heart attack OTB to those much more likely runner/race outcomes is ridiculous.  A better comparison would be comparing Carlsen breaking up with his girlfriend one day and blundering his queen to a runner tripping over the starting block...both rare, but a lot less rare than a super GM (note how it's not just the chance of any old chessplayer having a heart attack, but of a super GM/top 40-ish in the world player, who just happens to be playing a 1300 in a rated tourney, and who also just happens to have a heart attack OTB) having a heart attack OTB.

Carlson could break up with his girlfriend, his mother pass on, show up drunk as a skunk, in his pajamas after no sleep for 2 days, hang his Queen and never lose to a 1300 as long as he doesn't pass out and lose on time. Joking around of course, but the debate should not include "situations" out side the norm.

Not the point, I have already said that won't happen, in this very thread, and a long time before you ever came along, I might add.  The point was that your running example is flawed and unuseful in this discussion for furthering the side we both agree on...no more, no less.

A runner who can run the hundred in 10 secs can trip, fall, pull a hamstring , and beat a runner who's best is 20 secs.

Heart attacks and strokes while playing in tournaments are surprisingly common among chess players. Emory Tate died while playing in a chess tournament just last month!

I'm comparing that to 1300 vs 2700.

OK btickler... maybe not the best comparison. I think many do not realize how good 2700 is. Thanks

There are a couple of orders of magnitude less chess players in the super GM category, and even more orders of magnitude less of those super GMs playing 1300 players, both requirements for the unlikely heart attack scenario to occur ;).  So take your chance of a heart attack OTB, and then make it another 10000x more unlikely.

okay mr. smart guy, what ever. How about two computers play each other forever, and one is 2700 elo and the other is a computer that generates completely random moves. The latter will beat the former eventually. is that good enough?

A high rating wouldn't reduce your chance for heart attack 

You would have to argue something like players rated over 2700 are more physically fit than the general chess playing population... I wouldn't be surprised if this were true.

Not in any of our lifetimes it won't (nor in the lifespan of humanity as a whole), not unless you have a shitload more computers on the "random" side of this.  That's the whole point I was arguing.  Overcoming infinitesimal chances requires infinite resources.  The random monkey moves example is not some lottery-style, lightning-strike-while-being-attacked-by-a-shark type of gamble...it is unfathomably rarer than that.

No, because it's not possible for a rated human to make random moves when they're taking the game seriously. The set of moves they're capable of playing should be well defined, and it is possible that even in every combination the 1300 will lose even if infinite games were played.

Exactly btickler. If someone believes in infinite universes and infinite time that anything is possible, how can anyone dispute? Me, I live in reality.

The chances are not infinitesimal for a random move generator because there are not an infinite number of possible games. Especially considering that a decent opponent will only ever play a very small fraction of all possible games.

Therefore you don't need infinite resources.

@btickler.. I edited my post. "You" was generic Meant to imply anyone.Was not directed at you personally.