Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

I notice you are still unable to directly answer the question

"Seeing the best move" or not is the very definition of skill (or lack thereof), not luck. Being "too blind" = lack of skill. Any decision made that has an element of skill in terms of game design is a skill-based endeavor, and a lack of skill or an element of uncertainty due to lack of knowledge is not luck. Uncertain outcomes do not just translate to "luck". Making guesses and getting an uncertain outcome from one of both players' decisions is an expression of their skill levels and to the degree that they fail, that displays a lack of skill, not some perception of "luck" rushing in to fill some void. If you make a guess in Trivial Pursuit on the question "What French leader ended his life on Saint Helena?" and you guess "Napoleon" rather than "Louis the XIV" because they are the only two you remember, that is skill, knowing the two leaders in the first place is an expression of skill (knowledge), and having some vague notion that Louis the XIV probably did not die in exile on an island is an expression of skill. Even if you "randomly" guess between the two and cannot articulate why, it is not actually random, your intuition has a basis, unless you actually flip a coin and introduce a randomized element.

The idea of luck you are talking about is the broadest definition, and is subjective. In game design, subjective perception of luck in not useful. Only completely randomized game elements are "luck", within the construct of a game's design and function. Luck that you experience externally (like eating a bad burrito, or getting a bad pairing in a tournament...tournaments rules also not being a part of chess, but added on top) in not luck *in* the game of chess you are playing.

Of course, this is an interpretation, but the difference is that one side's interpretation is based on some smattering of actuarial sciences/statistics, and the other is based on college level game design courses from Wharton and UCSCE.

Try Puzzle battle and you will see whether luck is dependable or not.

It isn't a campaign. It's regarding verbal abuse which has just occurred and which should be reported if we are to be able to have discussions here without constantly encountering further verbal abuse and evasion of arguments. I'm pointing it out to those who are unaware of that. I invite you to report me.

If you don't know, I'm not going to try to explain. I'm not an hypocrite and I've been muted a few times for falling foul of the bots. I would say that I've never, ever, initiated any exchanges of insults on Chess.com.

Why is there so much hate in you? It's almost sad to see it.

Hello Pegasu. Have you never moved a piece to a square you didn't intend and had rejected, only to find it was a superb move??

I quite simply don't need ever to do that and I never have done that. I do, however, firmly believe those epithets apply to you, not as an insult but as an observation. Something causes you to look for fights. It's all you ever want to do. Perhaps you deliberately answer people in an unintelligent way, sometimes, in order to exasperate them. My opinion, though, is that you aren't actually capable of framing an argument.

Talking to you isn't worth the bother. You seem to like to talk to me though. You trying to learn something in between your insults?

Calumny means misrepresentation. I don't think I've ever encountered a more sly, devious and fundamentally dishonest person online. You never give a straight answer when you can try to confuse someone and look clever and you don't understand that it reflects on you, not on other people. Anyone with any sense can tell what you're doing and only the likes of Elroch are oblivious to it. He blocked me after you started insulting me. I know it's just a conspiracy to drive people he doesn't have the ability to argue against off his threads and he uses you for that. That's twice in quick succession so I know it isn't a coincidence. It's deliberate. That you come looking for trouble outside Elroch's protection means that your problem's becoming worse. I genuinely don't know whether it's right or wrong to tell people they're certifiable when they are so crazy they are obviously harming others and are a danger to themselves. What do you think?

I won't explain why water is wet to you, either. This oft-used science-denier style of tactic, i.e. asking pedantic questions repeatedly and then claiming that someone must know they are wrong if they do not spend an order of magnitude more time explaining the obvious back to you, is disingenuous.

If this is all you've got, then we're at an impasse. Oh wait, the impasse is the same one that already existed when you bumped the thread...

There's nothing here now that was not already hashed out to the Nth degree in the previous 200 pages.

There's no luck (meaning luck as a game designer uses it) inherent to an instance of a game of chess, unless you purposefully choose moves at random...which is not "playing chess".

Still no answer for a 4th time.

For those who don't want to scroll, the reason the simple question "what makes a coin flip a randomizing event (other than 'me/my friends decree it so')?" is not being answered is because doing so would immediately characterize chess as containing elements of luck.

This is why the most vocal proponent of determinism has failed: his argument is an appeal to unknown authority, whereas the argument for luck in chess is based on a falsifiable mathematical reality. And in general, business students know their limitations well enough to know they're over their heads when talking with the hard scientists, hence (what I predict to be) the continued avoidance of the simple question above

If you are unable to determine the right continuation out of two outstanding candidate moves and your intuition, that has given you these two candidates, favours neither, it is natural to purposefully choose a move at random. So, is that an instance of a game of chess where there is luck inherent to?

The choice, unless determined solely by a randomizing mechanism, is *not* random. The fact that you might *claim* you choose randomly is irrelevant...you did not choose randomly. You chose based on some criteria, whether you can articulate it or not. 

Now you'd reply it is lack of skill, which is not part of the game itself.

No, I would not.

For example, better players in the same position would not have had to choose randomly. Quotes are your quotes from a few posts ago (#3957 now).

"(..) [A]n element of uncertainty due to lack of knowledge is not luck." "Making guesses and getting an uncertain outcome (..) is an expression of [the players'] skill levels and to the degree that they fail, that displays a lack of skill, not some perception of "luck" rushing in to fill some void."

The void is our lack of skill. It is filled by moves. These do not choose themselves. Chess does not unfold by existence of its rules, we need to play. Our imagination and our intuition often face voids- I believe it is most common during games of chess, at any level. We have to play on to find out what our candidates are good for. So the voids we fill ourselves, but some perception of luck may well be rushing into or out of our games right there. (I'd even say we have developed and will develop imagination and intuition by playing random moves. Getting lucky or unlucky are necessary to getting better/staying good and thus are both fine- we can be very happy with the state of affairs).

"Only completely randomized game elements are "luck", within the construct of a game's design and function".

Chess implicitly has actors, or agents, the players of the pieces. Chess has to be explored. The affordances of chess in relation to our capabilities make for a game beyond the grasp of our imagination and intuition, by that again letting us grasp. Unlike Tic-Tac-Toe, which, once you know how, is like a mantra or a ritual or a passtime, chess remains a game for us. For all of us. A game where we find ourselves as inbuild fortune wheels, randomizers, coin tosses. This is just due to our lack of skill

yeah we can have mr. Albert Einstein play against IDK me and Einstein doesn't know how to play chess

He's obviously crazy but it's worse than that. "If this is all you've got" and calling you disingenuous are the tactics of desperation. Endless dishonesty isn't going to produce an agreement. Maybe we should start another thread on the subject and block him because all he wants to do is dominate any discussion and generate spam to cover up all the arguments. His version of spam is reflecting arguments back and pretending they mean the opposite of what they mean. And pretending we are deluded and he's intelligent is the best one.