How much of chess is luck?

If neither player has unlimited skill, then some of the time the player with less skill will, by chance, make a move that confounds the more skillful player. It is for this reason that Magnus Carlson doesn't win every game he plays.

"Luck is created"--Robert Kiyosaki

I will say now (relating the above quote to chess);  If your opponent makes a move that gives you an opportunity to get an advantage, you still are supposed to make the right move to get it... or else your luck that time means nothing.  Opportunity and ability go hand in hand... In chess you have to put yourself in a position to be "lucky".  Most things that require some kind of doing don't include luck as the main part. 

@bobbytalparov,

not true, I've played moves with a specific plan only to realise a few moves later that my plan was flawed but then realised it had opened up another v good option that I hadn't previously seen. That's luck not good play.

But they do not see all possible continuations of the system. That's the point.

So the less you know the more luck you need.

The only luck in a game of chess is the color selection and arguably for some whether one players dies in the middle of the game, tournament pairings, etc.

This is immaterial, though.  The game of chess as a logical construct does not include tourney rules, clocks, ratings, or any of the other external trappings heaped on top of it.  Those are rules of competition, not part of the game of chess.

Luck is not defined by someone making a mistake.  That is incompetence.  Sub-optimal move choices are not luck.  The statistical graph of probabilities above does not represent luck in chess.  It represents the chance of one rated player to outplay another rated player in any given game.

You are looking more and more like some recycled sockpuppet troll, OP.

Not at all.  You are relying on the other player's mistakes.

Lots of luck in chess....but it depends upon how you define it.

As human's can't see everything, I see 'luck' as what your opponent does not do right. Simple.

By definition, mistakes made by your opponent are not luck.  And, by the way, even deciding to flip a coin to make a decision is not luck, only the random result is considered luck.  Deciding to flip a coin because one lacks knowledge to make a better decision is poor planning.

As for the GM argument...GMs say they "got lucky" against an opponent to avoid being rude and saying the truth, that their opponent made a bad decision.  If they say they made a "lucky" choice in their own move, they are being self-deprecating, or if they really don't know why they made a certain move over another one, they are flat out telling you they didn't understand the position well enough and picked factor A over factor B, and factor A turned out to be right.  That is not luck.  Not by any real definition of the word.

I've sometimes gotten lucky, like when I moved a bishop during a blitz game and accidentally got a checkmate. But chess is still a skill-based game (as opposed to a luck-based game, like roulette).

I agree with those that say it is a semantics issue.  

I don't think that an opponent playing poorly is luck.  Luck has to mean forces out of the players control.  He had free will.  He knew the options and picked the wrong one.  That is not luck that is insufficient skill at that moment.  

If we had a weight lifting contest, my opponent lifts more and wins, or less and loses.  If he lifts less I am not lucky I am superior.  If he tears a muscle and can not lift,  I was still physically superior not lucky.  

But I could see how someone would say I was lucky my opponent tore his muscle.  That's semantics, so feel free (everyone) to continue chasing your tails and pretending you have a better point than someone else by using a different definition.  I'm out!

There is no luck. Instead of making a mistake your opponent could have chosen the best move. It's not like in poker where you don't know what cards will appear next. 

Just adding some sense to the thread, as many posters have done.  I've done this on every significant (more than a handful of posts) "chess has luck" thread posted since I got here.

Mistakes of your opponent are pretty much out of your control. You can try to induce them by various means but it's not guaranteed to work. Your own mistakes are somewhat out of your control as well. You can know a tactical pattern and see it in most cases but you can't guarantee to always see it - it's out of your control.

None of which represents luck.  Out of control is not equal to luck.  That is like saying that babies learning to walk to is a matter of luck.

But how and when this lack of skills will manifest itself - nobody knows and nobody can predict. There is randomness... and hence luck.

It's not incorrect,  my lack of skill at that moment lead me to a winning position, the reason I made the moves was because of a flawed plan but those moves opened up something else much better that I hadn't seen, in other words. I won because of an error of judgment not because of great chess, I got lucky.

well contrary to popular beliefs the amount actually inversely varies with the skill.For skillful individuals tend to play moves that can be logically anticipated.But one intresting thing is that their will always be limit to how much you simulate the game since human beings have limits.

Luck is not defined as the opposite of skill.  Winning by an error in judgment (yours or your opponent's) is by definition a lack of skill.  A lack of skill is not "luck".  Choosing a bad move that turns out okay because your opponent didn't know enough to take advantage of it is not "luck".