The information may be available in an abstract sense, but it cannot be processed within the given time constraints. Perhaps once chess has been solved... 
any other games where luck not involved apart from chess??
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Apr 1, 2011
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#82
Yes, either by humans or by computers. I guess what I'm ultimately saying is the degree to which you are unable to process this information (whether constrained by time, storage or processing capabilities) is precisely the thing of which chess skill is comprised.
Apr 1, 2011
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#84
And if you were able to process the information completely, chance would play no part at all.
Correct, although even if you cannot process the information completely it is a function of skill, not of luck.
Apr 1, 2011
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#86
Or rather because no one can process the information completely, every player no matter how gifted has to rely on hunches and guesswork to some extent, and this makes the results of individual games between players of similar strength unpredictable in advance.
Absolutely.
Apr 1, 2011
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#88
... which by some dictionary definitions means that the winner won through 'luck' or 'good fortune.'
No, uncertainty doesn't necesssarily have to be rooted in luck or chance. I can also be a result of simply not having, or not having the ability to use, all of the information in an otherwise perfect information system. Plus, I think this confuses two separate issues:
Is there luck involved in correctly guessing the outcome of a game of chess between two closely matched opponents? Absolutely.
Is there luck involved in the game itself? No.
Apr 1, 2011
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#90
The Elo system is designed to predict the probability of winning games not the probability of correctly predicting the outcome. Rating systems such as Elo or Glicko are predicated on the assumption that the probability of a player winning a particular game against another player can be predicted given the ratings of the two players. There are tables that give these probabilities such as this one. If we assume that Fischer had a rating in the neighbourhood of 2600 in 1964, and Zalys had a rating of less than 2200, that would mean that Fischer would have a 92% or more chance of beating Zalys in a tournament game, and yet, Zalys won. This would seem to suggest that Zalys experienced an "unexpected success" which seems to be one of the dictionary definitions of 'luck."
Probability, chance and luck all seem to be brothers here. I'm not sure how you can separate them. It is exactly the randomness of the outcomes of individual games that Elo is trying to capture. You can dispute the validity of Elo's efforts, say that there is no need for a rating system, because there is no randomness, but you would be attacking the very basis of most rating systems in the process.
ELO and Glicko ratings are inherently indicators of past performance, and are often used (some would say misused) as a guide to help predict future performance.
Doesn't the fact that you can turn past performance into a relatively reliable predictive measure speak against luck as opposed to for it?
Also, and again, apparent randomness (aka uncertainty) doesn't necessarily require luck or even chance to be invoked. It can simply be a product of an inability to understand the underlying causal reasons for something.
Apr 1, 2011
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#93
I suspect though that these chance random factors that are affecting the outcome can easily be grouped under the rubric of 'luck.' A worse player can beat a better player for many reasons. The game ends up in a position that the stronger player finds uncongenial. The weaker player happens to hit upon one of the few holes in his opponent's repertoire. His opponent gets overconfident. His opponent goes in for a sharp risky continuation without fully guessing its impact on his position. His opponent runs out of time, and has to play quickly and somewhat randomly. Those are the things we saw in the Zalys, Christiansen and Radjabov games I think.
But aren't those factors, uncongenial positions, holes in one's repertoire etc. the kind of things that you can improve (or steer the game to avoid) with study (effectively increasing your level of skill)? Aren't shakiness and uncertainty in any given position an example of lack of skill?
Apr 2, 2011
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#95
If the holes are few, it would be unlikely that an opponent would hit on them, and so some would consider him lucky to have found a target that is so difficult to find.
Luck doesn't exist, therefore the question is nonsense imo, I am a bit of a fatalist.
Apr 2, 2011
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#97
Yeah, I was wondering yesterday if this might be more of a philosophical or religious question. Incidents like the Kasparov-Radjabov affair do seem to indicate that some GMs believe that some wins are more deserving than others. You lose some games despite playing well, and win others when a sudden and quite unexpected opportunity falls into your lap. Whether you want to call this luck or something else will depend in part on your view of the world, but I do think it's a fairly common occurrence.
I'm not saying that chess does not require skill. What I am trying to say is that between opponents of similar strength in games played blindfold or at fast time controls, even the strongest players can make uncharacteristic blunders that do not reflect their level of skill. These blunders also appear quite regularly just before the 40 move mark in games where 40 moves have to be made in 2 or 2 1/2 hours for instance. A strong player may play the opening and early middlegame flawlessly, but end up losing because he lacks the time to calculate the final crushing blow. Who wins these games sometimes seems to be more a matter of luck than skill. The complexity of the game is overwhelming their ability to find an appropriate solution within the given time.
I understand, but all that changing the time controls or intruducing blindfolds does is alter to what extent the players are hindered by their respective inabilities (read skill) to synthesise the available information (and all of it is still available).
It is ultimately a difference of degree, not one of type.