Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

 

Of course. That's why I currently have about 100 elementary age students in my classes and clubs. That's why I ran a tournament for young players yesterday, and why I am running a longer one today.

I hope you keep your interest in chess. I would like it if you stop attacking people on this site and the site itself. I would like it if you could learn to recognize checkmate. You could contribute to this site. Why you choose negativity only you can answer.

ugh. coolout toxic troll master of the strawman

Ziryab beats the crap out of me, the most i would have had at any one time is about 30. And zero now because COVID.

 

Listen, if you can. I've taught over one thousand young players to play chess. I discourage blitz when they are beginners because it cultivates bad habits. Fast play creates sloppiness. I know, I played tens of thousands of games that are utterly horrid.

When I'm talking about absolute beginners with zero board vision playing too much blitz instead of learning fundamental contacts, I'm not addressing the "majority". A percentile below 10 is a minority, just as a percentile above 90 is.



I'm actually offering help, but you're in Plato's Cave watching shadows.

Coolout since you have picked fights with 2 now by my count who have brought lots of kids to the game while implying in various ways that we hate chess or blitz or or want to drive people away or whatever….. maybe the problem isn’t with us.

Maybe it’s you.

How about instead you try coaching and get advice from an experienced coach like Ziryab.

If I return to coaching in the spring I will probably pick his brain a bit now that I know he is a more experienced coach.

@CooloutAC

One thing you will never find a good teacher doing:

Taking advice from someone whose understanding of the subject is in the bottom 10%.

 

But again, you are missing the key point. I'm not against blitz. I recommend that players learn something about the game first. 

When I could not keep more than half of my shots in a seven inch circle at ten yards, I sought advice on the fundamentals and slowed down. After lots of slow practice, I kicked the rate of my firing back up, but 90% of the shots now land in a three inch circle at ten yards. I can learn to do better, so I continue to work on the fundamentals--trigger control, breathing, etc.

Good that you like blitz. By all means play it. Do try to spend some time on tactics training instead of accusing players as bad as you are of cheating. Buy a book on checkmate patterns and read it.

Renaud and Kahn, The Art of the Checkmate is excellent.

It is very true. Swiss and knock-out tournaments (or even round robin, but far less) involve luck. But it is not specific to chess. The same would hold for checkers tournaments, tennis tournaments, football, etc.

But as far as the outcome of one single game of chess is concerned, there's practically no luck involved.

Hopeless or troll or both

 

Troll. Probably hopeless, too.

Luck is definitely an element of the game. You can get a lucky pairing in a tournament or make a lucky move (you only have 16 pieces so something like a max of around 100 possible moves in a position to consider; if you know nothing about chess other than how to make a legal move, then 1 in 100 is pretty decent odds to select the best one!), but you can't have a lucky career.

 

In this sense, it is more similar to something like golf then something like running. A hobby golfer could hit a single better shot than a pro one in a thousand tries, but they will never have a better round then one. On the flip side, a hobby jogger will simply never come close beating a pro over any distance over say 1k over the course of a race (barring injuries in both cases)

“This is why I don't think you truly believe chess is a sport, and simply say this so parents hire you to coach their kids. “

This is so dumb I don’t know where to start. Parents don’t run around with a thesaurus asking if chess is a sport.

I only want them in my class if the kid is enthusiastic about chess.

Many of the parents want their kids to participate in a tournament, and that is one of my main goals too.

My beginner class teaches them rules and some basics, my advanced class is tournament preparation, though some don’t do tournaments for various reasons.

All the big tournaments for kids are 1 hour long games, usually 5 games, which is a full day of chess. There will usually be one every week or two. No one does blitz tournaments like that, so go organize a blitz tourney for 400 kids if you really want to try it.

what would be funny:

Me:”Yeah I am going to teach the kids slow chess as practice for blitz”

Parent: “Oh…. preparing them for a blitz tournament”?

Me:”No. All the tournaments are slow chess “

Parent:”….? I don’t understand?”

Me: “It’s what some guy on the internet told me. Yeah he never coached before, but gosh it just sounded like good advice. Also, the kids are blundering even faster than they used to. It’s a good thing you hired a coach!”

Coolout I am guessing you have brought precisely zero new people into chess.

How close am I to hitting home?

 

than

"no different"=intelligent and informed and cares about chess and kids

ok, come down to my town, get permission for a large venue like a school, hire your staff, organize a blitz tournament. I am literally not stopping you.

 

Round one started at 11:00 am. It is 1:50 pm and 75% of the round three games are underway. The two weakest players lost in less than five minutes. The time control is g/30.

Well you bring up me and how many kids you think i encourage or discourage from chess.

Why am I fair game in this regard and it are not?

Yes Ziryab I miss the fun!

I always had a sinking feeling when I see a kid come back 5-10 minutes after the start of the round. I try to get them to play a full hour of chess, and write the moves down if they are old enough. I can’t help much without the game!

Because Coolout I look at all the chess tournaments organized here.

And anyway if I saw beginners trying to play blitz I would probably just cry. “Queen en prise…..Queen not captured. Repeat next turn “