Chess - what % skill?

Well, look -- if you don't look at the queenside for one move, then if there is a tactic on that side of the board, you will allow your opponent to play it; a better player would probably look there (or maybe his instinct tells him he doesn't have to waste such time! So there is a fuzzy area here).

Which player above shows more skill in that scenario? Probably the latter player mentioned. But let's say there wasn't a tactic on that particular move -- both players end up ignoring the queenside with the same move, and neither side gets punished. The "bad" player didn't make sure there wasn't anything wrong with his move; the good player did. It seems like the good player showed more skill, and yet didn't do any better than the bad player for this move.

With this in mind, I would say that it's possible, but not probable, to use more skill than someone on a given day, but still not get a better result than them. More skill means that you don't have to "oh I hope he doesn't see the opportunity I just gave him!" as much; being able to avoid those moments will help you in the long run, although occasionally someone can get away with missing a lot of stuff.

In conclusion, I think that there is an element of luck (or whatever you want to call it; in this case I would refer to it as possibly being rewarded for skill, but not in a guaranteed, proportional way) ,but that this does not justify blaming the result on luck since losing for something you didn't see is a part of the game for everybody. In other words, don't complain if your opponent finds a move against you he didn't originally see, because if you really wanted to avoid that you should have made sure he didn't have anything in the first place.

Skill is used to control your fate as much as possible, but it's not perfect. For example, a perfectly reasonable person can be the victim of a robbery. He can take the precautions ("make all the right moves"), such as locking the doors, keeping a light or two on, and yet it's still possible that a robber will break in anyway and end up taking something. Conversely, there might be people who take no precautions at all and have had no problems!

Hope that didn't sound too pretentious. This was fun.

Sorry about that. I think it's good, but unfortunately, not concise

It's 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% conce... oh nevermind.

it's 5% skill and 95% thinking about women

@chrisr2212, don't post junk on this forum.

This is 10% egg

20% milk

15% chocolate that is softer than silk

5% love

50% bake

and 100% reasons to bake me a cake