Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

I say, there can be luck involved in chess because sometimes you can accidentally move a piece and gain a check or checkmate for the opponent

This idea of luck needing to be based on probabilistic events. It's an interesting thought, but I wonder if it matches how people generally understand the word luck. Let's take the finding-a-coin example. Let's try to make it as conscious as possible.

Person A drops a coin, but they notice. The look down and decide 'ah, I can't be bothered to pick that up,' and walk on. Person B later decides to walk by, chooses to look down at their feet, not expecting to see the coin, spots it, picks it up and says 'That's a bit of luck!'

Person A meant to leave the coin there, Person B meant to look in that direction, but the way these two events converged caused a 3rd event we'd typically call 'lucky'. It would seem odd to disagree that's lucky. Maybe there's a probabilistic component to this, but if so it's hard to pin down what that is, so I'd say that at least intuitively lucky events don't have to be probabilistic. They can just be a bunch of things people consciously do on purpose that work in the favour of someone. Which to me does sort of describe what happens when an opponent makes a blunder.

I suppose I'm struggling with what we mean by probabilistic. When it comes to matters of the mind and people it all gets a bit mushy to define, no? So I think generally when we talk about lucky it's valid to include decisions made by others. Which is why I'd say it's intuitively reasonable to describe an opponent's chess move as both unskillful and lucky (for you).

What about my other example: I am to play a mystery opponent, and during lunch I revise my study of an opening defense, picked at random, so it's very fresh in my mind. During the game, my opponent plays this defense, and I respond to it well in part thanks to my earlier study. By studying I increased my skill, but it can surely be described as luck that I was able to employ this skill in the very next game I played, when it was freshest in my mind.

I think people resist the idea that there can be luck in Chess because perhaps it feels like that impinges on the purity of the game. But does it have to be so deep? It's a two-player game and sometimes even very skillful players mess up badly, and it seems spurious to claim that when they do it's wrong to describe it as a bit of luck for you. Especially when you believe they are unlikely to mess up.

Probabilistic event involves a random mechanic that is out of the players control. They typically use dice for this purpose in games. Two players making conscious decisions with superior ability and move prevailing is not an example of such, it is the opposite of random and therefore cannot provide an instance of luck.

Interesting. I think I agree that if you insist that a lucky event must be probabilistic then your point holds. I just think that rules out a lot of kinds of events we'd ordinarily think of as lucky (see my post a little bit above), so I suspect it's not useful as a working definition of luck.

I think there is not any luck in chess. Its only skill

No. YOU are not getting anywhere. YOU have absolutely no clue no clue what you are talking about. YOU offered a very poor and obviously incorrect definition of luck. If you want to know the definition of luck, all you have to do is look it up. But apparently YOU are too lazy to do that. You could also, as I mentioned before, just ask an AI platform or a search engine if luck was involved with chess. But YOU are too lazy to do that either. YOU don't need to "define that a little more so we can see if it is robust." That has already been done and no one cares if you want to have a different definition of anything other than whatever the rest of the world maintains. If you are, as you claim, not doing this to be annoying, I sure as hell dont want to see what you are like when you are actively being annoying!! So I am urging you once again--consult a dictionary and then consult an AI platform or research engine.

Why are you getting so angry? I'm just having a conversation here. I'm enjoying it, but it's clear you're not. It's only words. Chill out.

What on Earth makes you think I am angry? I am actually in a state of bemusement, not anger. The depths of your stupidity and you childish need to defend your opinion when you are obviously wrong is BEMUSING!

Maybe it's the way you're using a lot of caps and repeating yourself over and over and throwing out phrases like "YOU have absolutely no clue no clue what you are talking about" and accusing me of stupidity and resorting to all sorts of other personal insults that makes me think you might be angry. I know, it's a bit of a stretch.

Luck's a broad term.
Its not a 'view' though.
Just take any subjective thing in life - beauty - joy - other emotions - appreciation and so on .... you'll find it hard to find objective criteria for their definitions.
But they're nonetheless realities just as surely as DNA is a reality - reproduction - 'defense' -
------------------------------
Many might argue 'No! They're words that refer to life-based behaviours and cognitions and reactions to concrete realities !'
In other words - realities!
There was two of something. The 'two' could be seen as a kind of adjective - but its still a reality that there were two of whatever.
There's still no 'view' there.
In the misuse of the word view ... well ... view is a broad term too.
It can refer to 'a physical view of something physical' .... or it can refer to a chosen definitive perspective of something tangible or intangible.
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Either way - 'luck' is not a 'view'.
'luck' refers to a subset of events subject to variation by chance.
If one narrows definitions of luck (already invalid) to fewer or arbitrarily singular definitions (getting even progressively more and more invalid) or worse still - to defintions or singular definitions both invalid even on their own - (yet again even More invalid) ... then you could exclude luck in a very irrational and very false kind of way that's like pretending that entropy doesn't exist or that reverse time travel is possible.
Such corruption of the word 'luck' not only is invalid - but the corruption is three layers deep!

really? i never accused you of stupidity until AFTER you accused me of being angry! and telling you that you dont have any idea what you are talking about is not a statement of anger. it is simply a statement of truth. Now what other 'personal insults' are you referring to because I have no clue how you could make such an unfounded accusation. the sad fact is that some people are too hardheaded to admit they are wrong even after being presented with irrefutable facts. for you to be correct, all the dictionaries and all the search engines and AI platforms would have be wrong. what are the odds of that? for my part, i'm done trying to have an intelligent conversation with you. have a great life. And for god's sake dont forget to wear your helmet!

In spite of the current argument and nastiness between Tempe and Kestrel - (it started off friendly and impersonal)
I still have much reason to believe they're much better posters than Octo and especially better than 'the guy' and whoever/whatever 'ibrust' is.

I have no clue who 'the guy' is but I have read quite a bit of 'ibrust's comments and I would agree with you that he is pretty unimpressive.

Hi.
ibrust is now muted by chess.com it seems.
But before that his posts were okay for a while and then he very suddenly went into a Jekyll/Hyde dramatic personality change just a day or so ago.

Superficially it does seem like there is no luck in chess, as there is no random mechanic in the game itself. But - even if we discount external events over which a player has no control - I think you could argue that chess does contain luck because no human player has a perfect understanding of the moves they make.

To give a very basic example: if I move a pawn, intending to attack my opponent's knight, and inadvertently block a checkmate threat from a bishop-queen battery that I haven't seen, what is that, if not luck? It certainly isn't skill.

It certainly isnt luck. It IS skill--in this case the lack thereof. Your example actually fits perfectly with the actual answer to this question. There is no luck in chess (other than the black/white determination)--only varying levels of skill.

let me try to be a bit more articulate. every move we make in chess results in possible new lines the game could take. sometimes--like near the beginning or end of the game these new possible lines number in the dozens. In the middle game new lines could number in the thousands or more. But every time we make a move we are creating the potential for unintended consequences. This is a skill issue, not an example of luck.

OK. Let me use even smaller words in the hopes that even you might understand. Poker is a game of luck and skill. Backgammon is a game of luck and skill. Craps is a game of luck and skill. Monopoly is a game of luck and skill. Why is this? all of these games have external factors over and above skill--be it the luck of the draw at cards, the luck of the roll at dice, etc. Chess does not have such an external factor (other than my oft cited black/white firt move). Once you get past that first move there is no luck involved in chess. Yes, maybe my opponent has a heart attack and dies leaving me the winner. That would be lucky for me, but such an event is external to the game of chess. For the umpteenth time, don't believe me? Google it. Either every search engine or AI platform that I try is wrong about this OR you are wrong about this. Gee, I wonder which it is?