How much of chess is luck?

Unless you think that a human can calculate every variation resulting from a move, then there has to be some luck  involved. The only question for me is why people deny this?

I have a sense that people have such a fixed mindset that they've never even considered this question.

Every beginner has pondered this and if they stick to it and learn they come to the same conclusion.

That is not luck but lack of skills. You are not using a dice to decide your move. You can move whatever you like.

Mr. 1474 believes he's not a beginner, LOL!

not denying I'm a beginner. but I know enough to know I'm lacking skill.

You also lack the ability to read, apparently.

Exactly, but show me the player who doesn't lack skills.

That doesn't exists but it still not luck.

I'm not trying to fight, argue, or be insulting. I think people who know far more about the game honestly tried to answer. Backgammon has luck... there is a dice roll. There are limits to what each human can calculate but that is part of the difference in our skill. Perhaps a more interesting question would be if tactical calculation increases, does reliance on strategy and position decrease?

I'm not saying that chess isn't skilled based. Clearly it is. I'm questioning how much of it is luck. Unless you think that the top players can calculate every possible variation leading from each move (which isn't credible), then there must be some luck involved. I'm more interested in why people are in denial about this.

I'll do a worst case first.  As the discrepancy between players get larger the odds that the result is luck decrease.  For two players perfectly matched it is all "luck"in the sense you are using it.

Green and red represent the results based on normal and logistic distributions respectively depending on where you come down on that issue.   In short I'd say that if X has a probability of p of beating Y then X's result being the result of skill is 2*p-1 for 2*p-1>0 or 0 otherwise. Reversing this the chance it was "luck" is 2-2*p for 2-2*p > 0 otherwise 0.  Using that definition of luck a weaker player beating a stronger or equal player is always the result of luck while with a 1000 point discrepancy luck plays no role at all.  For something more reasonable like 100 point discrepancy, the stronger player winning is 26% skill, 74% luck.  

So that's the worst case.  The problem is that there is some additional serial correlation between individual players.  That is if X beat Y even one game X has a moderately higher chance of beating Y in future games than the rating would suggest.  Players "fit" each others styles.  The above assumes that "luck" is part of picking players, like a random blitz game here.   But if you are choosing your opponents based on fit that's a question of skill and not luck.  Which increases the skill percentage.  

No no no!

You don't have to see infinitely deeply into a position to attribute your moves to skill.  The goal is to beat your opponent.  If you do, you had more skill than he did.  

The top players see incredibly deeply, almost like computers.  That is skill.  

The people who are better than you have more skill, if they are worse they have less skill. 

In games where luck is a component, poker for example, the outcome could be a result of something completely outside the control of the players (deal of the cards).  That is NEVER the case in chess.  

You aren't defining luck correctly.  

Well ok, but nowhere did I say that chess wasn't a game that involves skill.

So what is it then?