Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

Perhaps "misunderstanding" is more accurate.

Employing your incomprehension of basic arguments to put down someone else is not only poor manners, the personal insult is against the site's rules. It is also absurd. Maybe you should  learn to behave like an adult.

I can go with "lack of understanding".

The absence of luck in the game design has no bearing on your play. BTW, I did find that your play on Lichess is much stronger than your play here. Maybe that's why you are higher rated there. You had a clearly superior position against a 1700 player at move 12, but then by move 18, through lack of understanding, you were dead lost. https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/how-beginners-play#comment-64800839

The rules of chess don't directly involve "luck" or "chance" in the actual gameplay.

But luck or chance can externally influence a chess game, like it can with anything else in life.

I sometimes play blitz at night, before bed. On numerous occasions, my 3-year-old daughter has woken up from a dream and called for me to comfort her, while I've been in the middle of a game. So I of course have to resign the game and close my computer, even if I'm winning.

Bad luck for me; good luck for my opponent ...

Polite chess players say "good luck" before the game, and "good game" after their opponent played terribly. At least, we think we are being polite. Perhaps we deceive ourselves.

The game isn't based on luck, but there are obviously elements of luck in it. Certainly in a single move, less so over a game, but probabilistically not over a career.

If you roll a 16 side dice to select your move, every so often, even though you had no impact on the roll, it will be the "right" move. Same way if you ask someone to take a half court shot in basketball 1 in 100 might go in and when you look at a scatterplot of the shots it's completely random. 

A very happy moment for my city.

That is incorrect from a statistics standpoint; randomness is a part of anything humans do.

Think of it this way: remove the hoop and have anyone throw something 1000 times in any direction and look at a scatter plot of the results. There's no skill or ability because there's no target or objective. And yet maybe 1 in those 1000 goes where a hoop would have been. It's just part of the randomness that is inherent in the world. Same thing with flipping coins. There is no skill involved, and yet if 1000 people line up and flip them sequentially, someone will be the last one to flip a heads (but there is no skill in flipping say 10 straight tails, it is just that .5^10 streaks happen every so often)

What if a basketball player is falling out of bounds, and they throw the ball behind their back, hoping a teammate will catch it ... but then the ball goes through the basket, instead. An accidental 3-point shot.

Luck?

What if a chess player is playing online, and they try to move their pawn to c5, but they mis-click and place their pawn on c6, by accident ... and c6 turns out to be a superior move, that leads to a material-winning sequence. Unknown to the player: their intended move (c5) would've actually been a blunder.

Luck?

This is again incorrect from a statistics point of view. Just because a human is behind an action doesn't make it skill based. Something become skill based, when, in my mind, you can improve upon the inherent randomness in any task.

Something that might help you understand is to think about the coin flip example above. "There is no skill involved, and yet if 1000 people line up and flip them sequentially, someone will be the last one to flip a heads (but there is no skill in flipping say 10 straight tails, it is just that .5^10 streaks happen every so often)"

You wanna help me hijack this thread with a debate about authorial intent and deconstruction?

Language always exceeds a writer’s effort to limit it. There is always a trace of prior significations.

Maybe I should bring Derrida into the chess as sport thread. That could be fun. But only if you are not blocked.

What if the chess player is playing online, and their dog, seeking attention, bumps their elbow with his head, just as the player is clicking his piece.

As a result, the player hangs their queen, through no fault of their own. A mis-click, due to dog interference.

Bad luck?

What if, OTB, a player's undefended knight is under attack.

He reaches for his knight, to move it to safety, but before he can touch his knight, he gets the sensation that he's about to sneeze.

Reflexively, he lifts his hand to his nose, and his fingertip accidentally brushes his d-pawn in the process.

Due to the touch-move rule, that player must now move his d-pawn. Which means his knight is lost.

Bad luck?

(Perhaps I'm having too much fun with these scenarios ...)

Checkers?

Go?

Wrong.

The rule specifically exempts accidental touches.

Score Four. I played this one a lot as a child.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3656/score-four

Connect Four.

Is tic-tac-toe a board game?

In the tournaments that I run, USCF Rule 10E

I could look up the FIDE rule for you.

Blitz has a few rules that differ. And hustlers in the park might not always play by established tournament rules.

Good catch on the touch-move rule. I wasn't thinking when I proposed that scenario.

Okay, I have another one:

Halfway through a tournament, a chess player secures the leading spot - his first ever realistic chance of winning a rated OTB tournament.

But before the next round begins, he's made aware of a family emergency. As a result, the player withdraws from the tournament.

Another player (obviously) goes on to win, and the withdrawn player doesn't even place in the final standings.

Bad luck for the withdrawn player?

While we disagree on a number of things, maybe even disagree more than agree, I have every reason to believe you are probably a very good coach. 

Yup

And, you, although you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge chess as a sport, appear to be a very fine human being. Funny, too.