Chess: A Game of Chances?

---

You are diluting the discussion, I just pointed out that a winning position probably occurred because one of the players played imperfect moves.

So, your debate about perfect continuation came to life because players are imperfect.

I still don't know why you oppose linking probability theory to chess, it's completely standard branch of mathematics.

One has to be very careful with throwing in the absolute, so you'll see how it's reasonable not to be so absolute in ones statements.

Your statement is (mathematically speaking) busted. Here, black can not get back material(with perfect play), nor can he mate his opponent, yet he will not lose the game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the same for white, he is down material, and he can not win, yet he does not lose:

 

---

 I know you didn't claim all these to have any practical use. I simply point out , that in case when we have no way of determining( I understand here that there is no way for humans to gain knowledge of such estimation , not only being unable to estimate by themselves), I am not sure if we can assess it even in theoretical field. I also fail to see how one can use boolean value to evalute the move .

chance = probability in my posts.

I was told chess is a fine art.

---

yessss .. about winning the game.  but no because you'd probably never get over it, spooky.

---

yeah it does

Only weak players think chess is a game of chance/luck.   Strong players know better... 

when playing live chess and the software or mouse slides your peice to the wrong square, that is bad luck.

---

Unless you have defective mouse and/or software I disagree. " Mouseslips " are invariably due to one trying to move too fast. I know from experience. 

Some seem to think that skills and chance exclude each other, and are not connected. I strongly believe that the skills you have vary constantly, and that chance is a very important factor in this variation.

And if chance influences your skills, it will also influence your games.

That is unless chance does not exist of course, which would mean everything is predetermined. And in that case your chess games are obviously predetermined too :-)

---

"In any given position, assuming each player plays the best moves (obviously a huge assumption) either one player will win and the other lose or the game will be drawn."

Nothing is busted.  The examples are absolutely drawn.  A set of moves exists in which neither player can win the game and so there was nothing the other could do to avoid a draw.  One player did not "overcome the odds" and manage to pull out a draw.  The draw existed and so the game was drawn.

You deliberately deleted the quoted part which is busted. I will post it again, this is proof IMO that one has to be very careful when talking about absolutes, because sometimes it's hard to write down all possible examples. That's again when statistics are handy, you can say what percentage of games/positions when certain material combination is win. You were too narrow in your statement and therefore it's busted  : "Unless you can calculate that even though you are down material you will be either to a) gain back more material than you lose or b) mate your opponent and there is no combination of moves to prevent this, you have lost the game."

Look, dschaef32, here's the basic thing.  You can argue theoretics until you're blue in the face very strongly, because you know what?  You're Right.  No one who understands what you're talking about disputes that you're right about that.  But you're winning the battle to lose the war, because what you're right about has no useful relationship to any actual chess game.

It is like arguing that a table doesn't exist because the universe is mostly empty space.  If you argued this, yes you'd be theoretically correct that the table doesn't exist.  You'd get to walk around being "correct".  But your correctness has no application.  Being mostly empty space doesn't mean that one still can't eat lunch at the table.  Sometimes you have to put aside what is theoretically correct in favor of what is demonstratably useful.

It isn't necessarily true to say you're not grounded in reality.  What would be more correct would be that, like the table, there are different levels of reality.   One level looks at theoretical precision (because it values absolute truth), and one looks at usefulness (because it isn't useful to say that the table doesn't exist when it's being used to place things on).

Transferring to chess:

In this case, in that mate in 8 situation where you claim you're absolutely lost, that might be true theoretically.  But in useful terms, you can't call the position won or lost.  You may only say "it's a won position" from afar, within the confines of what could realistically happen.  Saying that this has an absolute theoretical solution regardless on the board is theoretically correct.  But as soon as you step up to that chessboard to actually play that position, theoretical truth goes out the window.  It cannot be usefully applied until you agree to recognize the presence of every other variable.

Here is the "absolute draw", why it wasn't a draw?

Well, because there is a probability higher than 0 that means this could happen, and it happened. It was improbable, but not impossible, had it been impossible it could not have happened by definition.

 

Of course, the "My opponent got lucky" excuse is bogus, but not with the reasoning you post, "He won because he worked harder". I assume that you're lying in order to motivate your pupil :) Would that it were so, but: It depends on the moves that are made, and some players are just naturally more talented, and sometimes player have - unbeknownst to you - studied exactly the kind of thing you happened to neglect. It's been pointed out various times: there are a lot of factors that determine which player is going to play which move in the particular position. Blunders, mistakes and inaccuracies are what keeps chess alive. No one would play if these factors didn't exist. The winner is the one who makes the second-to-last mistake, remember?

Does this make chess a game of chance? In the sense that you can never truly know whether your opponent will end up playing an inferior move and when, and that you need him to if you want to win, I think yes. You don't roll dice, you don't receive imperfect information - but the guy on the other side is human. That's the element of chance involved, if any do exist. You never know how exactly you're going to win until it's there on the board.

However! Your own mistakes are something you can strive to keep under control. Keeping your mistakes down, finding the right move to play, or at least one that isn't wrong, is what getting better at chess is all about. So no, you can't use "My opponent got lucky" as an excuse, because your mistakes are yours to avoid.

Chess in not game of chance(in role of the dice meaning), but there is always some element of probability involved.

People(even computers) choose various openings, there is a chance that e4 will be played as first move, than there is a chance that c5 would be reply, etc...

Well, yes.

Chess is a game of chance to a degree, but not like poker is.

I would say poker is 50% chance 50% skill

Chess is more like 95% skill 5% chance

---

How do you know what colour my face is?  It was just meant to be a discussion for the sake of discussion, take from it what you will.