Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

Sorry for being repetitious; the first post inexplicably failed to appear for 20 hours.

This has happened to me. I made a random pawn push on move 8, because I couldn't figure out anything else to do. Maybe I wanted to develop my knight, I don't know. Chess.com considers this a miss, but that pawn stayed on f5 and ended up winning me the game.

How can I know that the 400-rated opponent who played at 1300 Elo with 98% accuracy and not a single inaccuracy in 20+ moves not including opening book moves, really was a cheater ?

If it really looks suspicious, I report ; I guess that might help in the long run ...

PS: I don't get why they do this, but since there are perverts of any type, esp. those who get pleasure from making others sad, I'm not that surprised...

Is it luck if I play a terrible game but still win? I would say so.

The whisky I have now is the Laphroaig 10-year old I happened upon at a discount food store called Trader Joe's--only $40. I much preferred the 15-year old, but it seems they don't produce that anymore. They do bottle a 25-year old, but the prices of $500+ keep me away. My other top choice is Lagavulin, another Islay product, but a fire at their storage facility years ago means there is presently a shortage of their fine 16-year old. The scarcity has driven up the price to $125+ here in California, so I have been looking for something more reasonable. I don't drink a lot of distilled liquors (mostly wine for me) so I don't mind paying for quality. Someone on a different thread also sang the praises of Dalwhinnie so I'll probably try that when I finish the Laphroaig.

Last night I compared 18 year Glenmorangie bottled in December with 18 year Glenmorangie bottled in 2006. They differ.

Any agricultural product will differ from year to year--weather affects the grain, water quality, characteristics of the wood in the barrels. Vintners try to adapt their processing to take best advantage of annual conditions, with sometimes-great variation in wine (and its price). Distilling puts a stop to most chemical reactions, but you would expect 15+ years bottle aging to make some difference.

So, there is luck in agriculture.

Bottle aging affects wine significantly, but not whisky. It is likely, however, that Glenmorangie tinkers a bit with the formula for blending their single malts. Perhaps the amount of port-finished whisky was slightly higher in the 2006 bottling than in the 2022.

I've had wine that had a hint of smoke from the forest fires that were severe while the grapes were growing.

I believe that. What did you think of it?

If you blunder and the opponent does not see it, that is lucky.

Short answer: Yes there is luck involved but you playing a terrible game is hardly proof of it as your opponents play was arguably worse resulting in a loss.

Analyzing this scenario in more detail you would likely find some elements of luck in it, but just your opponent not seeing a blunder in itself is just evidence of their lack of skill in that decisive play, not actually luck.

Again resurrecting one of my favorite threads with some thoughts from top players and pros in other games.

"There is definitely an element of chance in any individual chess game or tournament"- Caruana

"I was actually aware of this but didn’t want to divert into the minutia of how chess involves luck but I’m glad you did! Didn’t want to derail the conversation and I was pretty sure me saying 'there is some luck in chess' would do just that"- Daniel Negreanu

To recap:

1) If there is not a set of initial conditions (relative elo in chess, handicap in golf, GPA in law school) that can completely determine the outcome of a single future event (i.e. 100% true positive, 100% true negative), the activity involves luck (chance/randomness/entropy/whatever word you want that fits).

2) By virtue of having to select a move, and there being a finite number of moves to choose from, a person is confronted with a prior distribution of "good" or "bad" moves (leaving out how such moves are categorized or what this distribution looks like) before they make a selection of their move. i.e. someone can stumble on a good move by chance, or select a bad move with good intentions. It is easy to think of such examples.

3) Looking exclusively at an outcome (hit/miss, convict/acquit, positive return/negative return) to determine relative skill is fallacious reasoning.

4) The role of randomness in near everything we do is not a "knock" against any profession or endeavor, it is a description of reality that should be celebrated (otherwise, life would be pretty boring).

https://x.com/RealKidPoker/status/1707295210307510378?s=20

https://x.com/FabianoCaruana/status/1707109404037067233?s=20

It's 50/50 at best.

heads or tails

Well, I can't make heads or tails out of it.