Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

     Now you put yourself in charge of what should and should not be allowed? Who died and made you king? Of course, with your usual incoherence you forgot to mention what you were talking about.

     How can you claim that classical is both much easier to play and also so draining that time controls need to be shortened to preserve players' health? You also claim blitz is better because it takes so much energy and stamina. Shouldn't we ban blitz tournaments to safeguard players' health?

     (Aside--Karpov did not "almost die". He took a few days off during the match when he caught a bug but came back to play. He has repeatedly said he was never seriously sick. The USSR government just used "the players' health" as an excuse to call off the match as the labor union federation wanted their hall for their annual convention and the government wasn't willing to pay for an alternative site.)

     Glad to see you admit that the (un)lucky occurrences of everyday life that throw a monkey wrench into normality "can be applied to any sport or game." Chess is a game. Sometimes things completely unrelated to the game itself happen to influence the result of a chess competition. That's a quirk of luck.

     I think that chess is the best game there is. Every other game I mentioned meets your criteria of "not based on elements of chance" so what are you talking about? Again, I have never equated chess to most board games. Show me where I have or quit lying about me. That's shameful.

     Finally, I play chess in three different places. My opponents are doctors, lawyers, software engineers, bakers, salesmen, office workers, the whole gamut of different occupations. We all make a living. (One homeless former drug addict that used to be a good player is using chess to help in his rehab, so there is that one exception.) There is one GM (plays in tournaments outside the club and is paid to be the TD) one IM (wins a few dollars in a couple of clubs and gives lessons) and one chess journalist, so they are making a living out of chess.

     Do you mean you would like all chess players to make a living from chess? Completely ridiculous. America has hundreds of recreational baseball leagues, college teams, industrial leagues, youth leagues, and so on. None of these players make money from the game. Minor league players are lucky to make minimum wage. Only a tiny elite minority of players are in the Major Leagues making good money. If a chess player wants to make a handsome living from the game they need to prove themselves to belong among the elite minority that earn good money. Why should chess be any different than any other career choice?

    If you definition of "professional" is anyone who makes any money playing chess, I have won a few dollars prize money now and again, so I would be happy to provide you with a chance to help raise the pay of chess pros by sending me as much money as you like.

I think I've been lucky to have avoided this inane claptrap for so long as I have.

Pretty sure I already gave a definitive answer to this topic many years ago, and with a single sentence.

Yeah, something like that.

The rules describe a game with no luck, but when humans play it there's at least some luck. To me there's nothing interesting to add after that.

Now hopefully I've been so full of myself that no one will want to post here anymore and this topic can die.

LOL.

how is this thread still alive...

There is definitely luck factor even at the highest level. You will find many examples, when even the super GMs didn't see basic blunder, which they could have seen in other case, but somehow in that position, in that moment they got distracted, or sometimes they are too tired after many daily games.

It is definitely a luck factor, when you miss something you could have easily seen maybe you just put the piece down, when you instantly realized you missed something. When such realization comes in like 0.001 sec, I think we also can call that luck factor and we could go on with the examples.

When two opponentsof the same level play against each other the luck factor is much higher, bigger the ELO gap, the luck factor fades away, because the better will easily win against the weaker player.

I once lost over $3500 in a night playing dice..

So you probably got the right idea.

Also when my opponents played a blunder he/she missed, but I saw it, then I always feel lucky they made the mistake, I never feel that: wow I am so good at chess in these cases.

     You are actually quibbling over semantics. Although there is no element of chance in the rules, "chess" is more than the moves over the board. Failure to punch the clock, or keep an accurate scoresheet, or say "j'adoube" before picking up a piece can determine the outcome of a game regardless of what happens at the board.  And other factors can come into play. Should a strong master be paired vs a weak player but suffer a fall down the stairs, an appendicitous attack,or an auto accident on the way to the tournament site they will lose on time by not making a move early enough. Does that truly mean the weaker player "outplayed" the master? Most people would define this as "bad luck".

     Even within the rules, every player, including world champions, occasionally make gross errors,perhaps as simple as just setting a piece on a square next to the one intended. This might happen one the in 1000, but the almost every recipient of such a gift would admit to being lucky that they were the one person in 1000 rather than claiming that they had proved themselves the superior player.

chess is a game of pure skill:

the only real element of chance involved is during drawing of lots for colors or tiebreaks.

The pairings (who plays which opponent each round, and with which color) also make a big difference, and are completely outside the player's control.

Getting the White pieces in an early round against a very strong opponent who is particularly noted for having strong finishes (for playing well in the late rounds of a tournament) might be enough to edge him out for first place... and it is not something that either player can influence, let alone control.

In other words... it depends on the luck of the pairings.

Well mistakes happen so chess can be lucky just with one bad move on the board

the pairings are usually determined by rating, which is a measure of skill level.

They are determined by rating AND by the field of contestants. As a player, you have no control over whether you are rated fifth or sixth in the field... and thus no control over what your first color will be, or who you will play.

I've played in more than forty rated over-the-board tournaments, including a Zonal (for under-20s). I assure you that this "no luck in chess" garbage is exactly that: garbage.

Let's say this: humans make mistake, computers don't. So in the case of super computers with the best engine there is no luck factor.

It seems like both sides are right. There is no luck in chess, the game itself. But there is luck in the circumstances that it's played. 

Tournament pairings, which color you have, opponent slipping on a banana peel, etc are all chance or luck. But it seems the game itself has no luck. So what about what Julia said. What about two supercomputers playing the exact same game, with the exact same rules as two humans playing? Is there any luck involved in two supercomputers playing chess?

discerning the value of moves is a skill based on the proper calculation and evaluation of their continuations... choosing one impulsively falls under the category of woodpushing.

my tournament opponent commits an unforced error when he fails to turn his phone off before our game:  i don't get 'lucky' when it rings while we are playing.