How much of chess is luck?

Not in any way that can truly be controlled by a punter kicking the ball 50 yards out. It's deterministic, but not in any way or capacity that a human could have any control over during a fast-paced football game. Not to mention infidelities in the turf, environmental conditions (wind, rain, snow all have impacts), etc. It is not humanly deterministic.

So how is chess, which has more possible moves than there are electrons in the universe, 'humanly deterministic'?

There is a problem with this definition of luck because according to it when you buy a lottery ticket and win it's not luck because there was an action of buying a ticket???

Now let's have a look at choice, chance and outcome. With exception of known theoretical positions there is no skill level that allows you to always know the exact outcome of your moves. It's always a guess. The stronger you are the closer your guess will be to the best move on average. But it's still just a guess. The probability of mistake is never zero. Here the chance comes into play. When you make a guess you can be closer ot farther from the best move. When you are closer to best move it's good luck, when you are not - it's bad luck.

Because it doesn't have more possible moves than there are electrons in the universe at any one point in time. Let's be honest, there are only a handful of moves you can make at a time and even fewer reasonable moves. Additionally, if something unexpected occurs, you can freshly recalculate based on the new position. Not all moves are equal, so you don't need to treat them as such. You're making a false equivalency here: yeah, there are many combinations in chess, but most can be ignored.

Whereas with punting a football, after the ball leaves your foot, you cannot realistically know which direction it'll bounce when it hits the turf.

wrong, the information is not in front of you.  winning the lottery is completely out of your control aside from buying the ticket.  looking back at the dictionary definition for luck the win was brought about by chance.  again this is simple.

it doesn't matter that we don't have the enough skill to know the outcome of our moves.  that just means we are lacking and always will be.  chance is still not responsible for moving  your pieces.

The only way to play chess in deterministic manner is to always calculate up to a forced win or or a forsed draw. Even computers have very limited capabilities in this sense. For humans it's always a guess with non-zero probability of mistake (with the exception of known theoretical positions).

As a starting player, I have the feeling luck is an important factor: up to now, I won a lot of daily chess games, because the oponent stopped playing, gave up in a situation in which he still could win or because he made a stupid mistake. In fact, I have never any plan or any control over the game and the only thing I can do is waiting for the oponent to make a stupid move. Or sometimes there suddenly appears a very nice opportunity, that I didn't plan but just arises from nothing.

Your definition of luck would determine the answer to your question. If luck is based on pure chance, there is absolutely no luck in chess. If, however, you define luck as the inability of an opponent to take advantage of a position, then perhaps luck is involved. (EDIT: Above post excellent example.)

In one of my games, I made a dreadful move that would have cost me a piece in two moves HAD MY OPPONENT SEEN IT. When he failed to see it, was I "lucky"? (The move involved him moving a Knight to fork two pieces.) However, that is not really luck, that was a lack of skill/ability on the part of my opponent not to capitalize on my mistake. Now, consider if he had made the better move to take advantage of my mistake. Would he consider himself "lucky" that I had made such a poor move? Or would he consider his skill better than mine to see where I had erred to gain an advantage. Would I have been "unlucky" because he saw it? No. I simply made a bad move.

So, we are at a point in a game where we wish to consider the better of two alternative moves. The higher rated player will "see" deeper, better evaluate alternatives and consequences, and then make the move based on that skill level. It is a considered decision. The outcome - lose, win, or draw is based on the skill that went into making the move and the skill of the player responding. There is no pure chance involved, no luck. The moves and responses do not rely on chance, the flip of a coin, toss of a die or spin of a wheel. The outcome is determined by skill. But, as I started out saying, if you consider that someone "missing" the better move is "unlucky" (as my opponent) or "lucky" as was I when he made an inferior move - then feel free to believe in luck. And perhaps it may help you win a game or two, or lose a game or two?

You know how there are some people you disagree with, but at least you recognize that they are smart enough and capable enough to make a good argument or ask a good question.  And then, there are other times when someone asks a question like this, and you realize how that "smart enough" part was all just an act.

I can't calculate up to forced win or forced draw. So I decide on my moves without compelete information on their consequences. Chance certainly plays its role in how close outcome of my moves will be to ideal outcome.

although sadomasochism is not out of the realm of plausibility for me.  i do no feel at all whipped.  Masil and I agreed to disagree.  enough time was spent arguing to realize that neither of us was going to budge.  I will say... it wasn't a bad argument.  I am not displeased.

and although you are so super cute tuna.  I can't be bothered to reply to all your jabs since your not adding anything to the discussion.  the slippery slope one was not bad though.

Sensible answers only, please.

When you move a chess piece, you can't realistically know all the different ways that your opponent will response over the succeeding moves.

Although I don't like it when examples from other sports are brought into chess discussion but there is one example I'd like to discuss.

Let's take a shooting competion. "A" is skilled and hits the target 9 out of 10 on average. "B" is not so skilled and hits the target 5 out of 10 on average. In the competition they shoot once and the guy who missed is eliminated (I know it's very simplified...). The probabilty of "A" missing and "B" hitting is 0.1*0.5=0.05. So this is quite rare but not impossible event. If it happens can't we say that "A" had bad luck while "B" had good luck? Doesn't it show that skill and luck are not contradictory, on the contrary they are inseparable?

Yes, you hit the target. 

You can say that B had good luck in A missing.  A didn't especially have bad luck though.  Their own skill let them down plus a coin flip on whether B scored.

I have no more control over a single move of my opponent than I do over whether my lottery ticket wins (where I stupid enough to ever buy a lottery ticket, which I'm not).  Both are events completely out of my hands.  Obviously in a game of chess, after my opponent makes his moves I then get my turn again so I can influence the game, but if we reach a position in which my opponent can deliver a forced mate and doesn't then that is completely out of my hands.   So what do we call an event that happens in our favour over which we have 0 control?

Brownian motion would be entirely deterministic, too, if we had the velocity and vector of every particle in the universe and a computer big enough.  The interesting thing is that the argument you are now making is actually in the direction of there being no such thing as luck at all.  Sure, if you could calculate the bounces of a pair dice on the fly and control your throw perfectly, there would be no luck in craps.  Not reality, though.  And you know this full well, you are just being willfully obtuse to try and win your point.  It's something you've done a number of times in this thread.

You could say it, but you'd be wrong.  Sorry, people get all offended about saying things that are wrong...let me say that your statement would be vague, fuzzy, and inaccurate.  Call it poetic license, if it makes you feel better, to go "awww, bad luck" when someone drops a hammer on their own foot.

You get halfway to make an almost intelligent point, then you fall back on insults. It's rather pathetic.