Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

We do get another thing in the public forums here though and it happens in the clubs too.
Long combative exchanges of consecutive posts with many nested quotes within them -between particular pairs of members - a kind of verbal chess game.
Obviously - other people are going to react in various ways to such contests. And do.
But then another behaviour happens - including from whatever pair of members
where one or both of them attempts to supervise other members reactions to their 'game'.
Attempts to insist that others shouldn't comment or remark about the exchange or to make sure that others should not include their names in such comments or mention past mutings.
Or an attempt to assign a double standard whereby options to make such comments are to be reserved to one or both of that pair and others are not to do so.
And also that others are to Not 'talk back' to them.

A person just made another misleading post as he so often does.
D hadn't been muted. And unlike that person - D doesn't tell falsehoods.
The single mute came later. How?
Perhaps a new moderator who wasn't in the know about O - who doesn't want it known that he just came off a three month mute.
Also - my post was general - it didn't name anybody.
It still doesn't.
Whereas the O person wants a 'you and me' exchange.
What happened recently was unfortunate because an innocent but new person arrived who didn't know what was going on ...
And now time to find a good post to respond to so as not to feed the --- (whatever)

That's a good post.
'does not have any uncertainties' refers to the rules of the game.
Occasionally there are 'uncertainties'.
Such as in live blitz tournaments - or in time scrambles of slower tournaments - concerning what constitutes mating material in clock flag situations.
Another 'uncertainty' is whether there was cheating or not.
Some nasty situations. Chess software has caused cheating to grow.

So playing against someone who doesn't cheat is lucky.

Any opportunity to tell a self-aggrandizing anecdote...

Lol yes

That's a nice story - gongrats on your win - but it has nothing to do with luck. Choosing your strategy to match your opponents weaknesses is just good play from you.

The impact of Tik Tok on society and on individuals.
You might have something there.
When I talk to AI - one could add two numbers and it acts like one has just invented the wheel -
its probably reinforcing that 'center of the universe' thing with a very small slice of male teenagers.

It certainly depends on how one defines 'luck'. Oftentimes, getting lucky is synonymous with poor opponent performance, like them making a considerable mistake. There's certainly an argument that could be considered luck, but I'd be inclined to say that such a view may be harmful to one's chess, even if it's not entirely inaccurate. For example, a stronger player would catch more mistakes and thus, would seem luckier. In reality, it has nothing to do with luck, but rather, the fact that the stronger player sees more than the weaker player creates an illusion of luck. The same can be said with building up positions or playing endgames. The stronger player will seem to have more 'luck' because they will play better moves on average, putting more pressure on their opponents. Hope this made some sense. I sometimes ramble. Cheers

There's a theory that luck is 'made'. And 'worked for'.
And there's 'luck is where opportunity meets preparation'.
But that's incomplete because there could be no 'opportunity' and there's luck.
And there could be no 'preparation' and there's luck.
Or neither. Luck still gets in there. In chess and in other things.

Luck cannot be used synonymously to poor opponent performance but maybe some do. That is a very faulty definition for luck. When poor performance leads to a bad result this is the opposite of a luck influenced incident. This is what is supposed to happen in a purely skill based game.

Luck isn't a precisely defined term I would say.
So many words aren't.
In math - words and terms have to be very precisely determined.
In language its different.

Mr Optimissed I do feel that it is a dishonest argument and maybe even a strawman to claim that those arguing against luck in chess, like myself, aren't willing to recognize opposing arguments. I believe I have maintained my position by valid logically valid arguments that address opposing points, like the ones you have made.

External luck like heart attacks are a property of humans, who can participate in chess. Not a property of chess as a game. Violence is a property of humans, who can participate in chess. You know that one kid who hit the female photographer at a chess tournament and got kicked out? Violence is not a property of chess as a game. I can go on.

Hello

That is exactly my point. Chess games can exist without abusing photographers, you're right. But what you missed is that chess games can also exist without humans. Humans are external to chess. So if you want to say luck is a property of chess, you should be able to show how it is without humans.

If luck is worked for it can still be luck.
Claiming the reverse would be like trying to pretend that chess is not a game of perfect information since we can't know the result in many positions.
Its a game of perfect information - but luck is there anyway.
(maybe whoever will try to make it personal and about 'you and me')
And - luck is a general term. An english word not a mathematical term.
Definitions vary according to usage. 
Even the dictionary will admit to multiple meanings for many words.
Or range of meaning.
Good thing that so often - others can't impose their meanings on us.
But there are exceptions. Many. In courtrooms. In the military. etc.

True but how can luck be something worked for? When you work to control the outcomes of events you reduce uncertainty and reduce the influence of luck. Unless you're literally creating a system of divination and leveraging "luck" to produce the outcomes, and you're maximizing your "luck" in that case. Which is possible but not what he means.

There's not much room for debate, when decisions are made with incomplete information, like when a game is more complex than the mind can fathom, the outcome is determined by luck to some degree.

Also, the very concept of luck relies on limited awareness, i.e. some subject i.e. humans, the very concept doesn't really exist in the world of conventional computing. Although... computers do act in non-deterministic ways all the time, since they rely on humans for input. And even technically these machines... the winning machine would be influenced by luck of the decisions of those who programmed it, along with whatever random seed is being passed to the genetic algorithm for random mutations. Though the game of chess is a human concept anyway.
Machines really can't do anything without some human input or "random" input, they don't have minds of their own. There's not some objective realm where machines live and operate independent of humans.

Increasing your own uncertainty or that of the opponents? Because increasing your own uncertainty doesn't require preparation, i.e. work beforehand. Maybe it requires effort in the moment. Some mental effort. I guess it's work in a looser sense than I was thinking about it.

Man this conversation just reminds me of how badly I need to get a life.

This is a good way to put it. Chess allows the player to reduce uncertainty to the best of their ability.

I don't actually see what you mean by saying that this concept doesn't apply to computers. As far as I can see, it does. Computers decide their move based on their algorithm and brute force calculation. Atleast for now this leaves uncertainty, as they're not able to calculate most of the lines till the end. To give a concrete example, there can easily be a scenario where the computer evaluates two lines as completely equal, when in reality one of the lines draws and the other one loses. It will make a decision based on its algorithm and in such scenario the decision has a certain probability of success.

Your self-awareness is lacking, as always.