Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

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OctopusOnSteroids
ChessAGC_YT wrote:

Guys stop writing essays to correct each other, a sentence or two will do!

And right here guys we can once again observe the very limited brain of the new generation.

After second sentence they're forced to switch to Tiktok, which sets a hard limit to their capabilities. One must communicate to these beings separately with short and simplified messages.

playerafar
OctopusOnSteroids wrote:
ChessAGC_YT wrote:

Guys stop writing essays to correct each other, a sentence or two will do!

And right here guys we can once again observe the very limited brain of the new generation.

After second sentence they're forced to switch to Tiktok, which sets a hard limit to their capabilities. One must communicate to these beings separately with short and simplified messages.

But is AGC a real person or an alt account of whoever?
Maybe he's a teenager. Or a pre-teen.
From southern California?
But then it might be more like:
'Hey these posts are like Far Out. Like Dood - I mean you know. Like.'
'To the Max Bro! Cool! Way Out! Tubular! Like.'
'I know right? Its Gnarly!'

JohnB2023

"The more I practice, the luckier I get"

Is a quote often attributed to the golfer Gary Player.

I think it probably applies to Chess also. If your opponent makes a blunder, it only matters if you are a good enough player to spot the blunder in the first place.

Better players probably get more "luck" than poor players do.

meharmn

If your opponent is not observing well then its your luck

playerafar
JohnB2023 wrote:

"The more I practice, the luckier I get"

Is a quote often attributed to the golfer Gary Player.

I think it probably applies to Chess also. If your opponent makes a blunder, it only matters if you are a good enough player to spot the blunder in the first place.

Better players probably get more "luck" than poor players do.

The more skillful somebody becomes the more that might overcome or reduce bad luck - which in turn increases the ability of good luck to be more significant since there'll be less of a bad luck factor to neutralize the good luck.
'the good player is always lucky' is dogmatic.
Could be improved to 'the good player tends to have more luck too'
or 'the more skillful a player becomes the more he will tend to have more luck too'

AGC-Gambit_YT
OctopusOnSteroids wrote:
ChessAGC_YT wrote:

Guys stop writing essays to correct each other, a sentence or two will do!

And right here guys we can once again observe the very limited brain of the new generation.

After second sentence they're forced to switch to Tiktok, which sets a hard limit to their capabilities. One must communicate to these beings separately with short and simplified messages.

Bro did not just say I use TikTok because I don't write essays on stupid things, I think we know who's the one with a limited brain here.

AGC-Gambit_YT
meharmn wrote:

If your opponent is not observing well then its your luck

No, that's just a skill issue.

AGC-Gambit_YT
playerafar wrote:
OctopusOnSteroids wrote:
ChessAGC_YT wrote:

Guys stop writing essays to correct each other, a sentence or two will do!

And right here guys we can once again observe the very limited brain of the new generation.

After second sentence they're forced to switch to Tiktok, which sets a hard limit to their capabilities. One must communicate to these beings separately with short and simplified messages.

But is AGC a real person or an alt account of whoever?
Maybe he's a teenager. Or a pre-teen.
From southern California?
But then it might be more like:
'Hey these posts are like Far Out. Like Dood - I mean you know. Like.'
'To the Max Bro! Cool! Way Out! Tubular! Like.'
'I know right? Its Gnarly!'

Bro you're literally acting like boomers, who tf says that. Hippies...

playerafar
ChessAGC_YT wrote:
playerafar wrote:
OctopusOnSteroids wrote:
ChessAGC_YT wrote:

Guys stop writing essays to correct each other, a sentence or two will do!

And right here guys we can once again observe the very limited brain of the new generation.

After second sentence they're forced to switch to Tiktok, which sets a hard limit to their capabilities. One must communicate to these beings separately with short and simplified messages.

But is AGC a real person or an alt account of whoever?
Maybe he's a teenager. Or a pre-teen.
From southern California?
But then it might be more like:
'Hey these posts are like Far Out. Like Dood - I mean you know. Like.'
'To the Max Bro! Cool! Way Out! Tubular! Like.'
'I know right? Its Gnarly!'

Bro you're literally acting like boomers, who tf says that. Hippies...

Got a Bro out of him ...
But he's always 'worried' though ...

playerafar

Lack of skill by the opponent is 'skill' by the other player?
People have very particular opinions of what 'skill' is.
There's a 'mindset' there that tends to think ...
'No! Luck does Not Exist anywhere in any way where any Skill is involved!''
Which is invalid of course ...
Even where there's a lot of skill involved.
The reality is that luck good or bad is always there affecting outcomes but to varying degree.
Another and related semantics issue is 'external luck' versus 'internal luck'.
Are they always both there - in all contests?
Contest implies at least two contestants and they're subject to luck good and bad so the answer's yes internal luck good or bad is always there.
And external luck is always there for all life forms - contest or not.
It isn't complicated.
-----------------
And No - skill in a situation doesn't mean luck is excluded.
Skill can reduce bad luck but the notion that it does so absolutely and universally is in error.
Maybe some coaches will Pep Talk their teams though and proclaim:
'We're going to get more and more skillful! There's no such thing as Luck!
Go Rams!'
Team replies: 'Go Rams!'
Coach puts hand to ear: 'I can't hear you!'
The whole team shouts very loudly.
The entire room shakes.
'Go Rams!!'

ungewichtet

A game of perfect information may bring in no luck by itself, but if we cannot make use of a table base for 32 pieces (even if it existed), we have to guess moves in every game. Some guesses are more to the point than others- and if, simply through getting one move closer to the goal, we realize what we got and capitalize on it, that means we got lucky playing the first move, proving to have been a good guess. Basically, with increasing skill, with vision and intuition getting better, we need to guess less often, and, also, the eval gaps between our candidates become less dramatic. But if we are seeking to optimize our choices in the clock time given, there will always be trade-offs, moving on the basis of a limited depth (ply) and width (candidates) to save time for calculation on later occasions. Therefore, guessing is a recurring theme in chess, good and bad luck are in the air

playerafar
ungewichtet wrote:

A game of perfect information may bring in no luck by itself, but if we cannot make use of a table base for 32 pieces (even if it existed), we have to guess moves in every game. Some guesses are more to the point than others- and if, simply through getting one move closer to the goal, we realize what we got and capitalize on it, that means we got lucky playing the first move, proving to have been a good guess. Basically, with increasing skill, vision and intuition getting better, we need to guess less often, and, also, the eval gaps between our candidates become less dramatic. But if we are seeking to optimize our choices in the clock time given, there will always be trade-offs, moving on the basis of a limited depth (ply) and width (candidates) to save time for calculation on later occasions. Therefore, guessing is a recurring theme in chess, good and bad luck are in the air

Yes.
Guessing happens.
And although GM's and other masters might be offended that whoever suggested they 'guessed' a move ... guessing isn't binary A or B ...
its scalar.
Exceptions:
Sure - calculate a mate in three and play it.
No guess there.
And if there's no shorter mate - then its 'perfect' at its end too.
Skill and no luck there? Some skill. No luck?
From there - maybe not? But before then ...
The player about to win might still 'need' some luck if his flag is about to fall.
He actually doesn't have time to checkmate - but his opponent takes too long and falls first.
This universe has luck in it.

SymphonicKnight

If someone were clearly stronger in chess, they would in all positions, wouldn;t they? Or maybe they would not and could not gather the information needed to victory every time. What is a rating anyway but an average of how you perform under a multitude of circumstances. I love you all, but know some will not be rescued.

SymphonicKnight

That hurts the most, that some will not choose enlightenment,

playerafar
SymphonicKnight wrote:

If someone were clearly stronger in chess, they would in all positions, wouldn;t they? Or maybe they would not and could not gather the information needed to victory every time. What is a rating anyway but an average of how you perform under a multitude of circumstances. I love you all, but know some will not be rescued.

Consider all GM games where there's a winner - rather than a draw.
An idea.
Say the average length of such games is 50 moves each.
Typically - does the winner know he's going to win for sure - by move 25?
Try - No.
Move 30? No.
Move 35. The winning GM might know he's got a big advantage and so might his opponent - but that opponent isn't going to give up as long as he thinks he has drawing chances or if he thinks there's enough play in the position that his opponent might make a mistake. Even a slight mistake might turn out to be enough to throw away the win.
By move 45 - maybe both players might know its just a formality at that point.
Point: Even in GM games where one player has gained a significant advantage - that doeesn't mean he can see through to the end and the result ...
Try - for most of the game he can't.

DiogenesDue
Optimissed wrote:

There's no point since anyone saying there's no luck in chess basically must think that luck doesn't exist, perhaps because they think that randomness doesn't exist.

Time to catch up on the weekend's posts, I guess,

What you said above doesn't follow, at all. Go ahead and and walk everyone through the logic steps between the two "no luck in chess", "must think luck doesn't exist"). I'll be happy to pick you apart.

Even so, they show they have no understanding of what other people mean by luck and so they are not worth responding to, since at best they are arguing about a concept which they misunderstand.

Your concept of luck is painfully easy to understand. Not a single new insight or nuance in it.

playerafar

As to whether people are worth responding to or not -
that's a decision or policy each member makes for himself/herself.
Along with many other decisions or policies.
Not for the Guy to decide but as usual he is arrogant and conceited enough to claim otherwise.
Plus he constantly contradicts himself by responding anyway.
Hahahahaah.
happy

DiogenesDue
ibrust777 wrote:

As the games complexity increases there's a greater demand of skill and a greater potential for luck... and vice versa. It's the high degree of complexity in chess, and the fact it isn't solved, which makes room for skill and luck. Tic-tac-toe is an example of a game with low complexity which requires neither skill nor luck. And complexity varies from one chess game to the next, and throughout a game...
[pointless K+Q mating example snipped]

Hence you could have any combination of high / low degrees of luck or skill on account of variation in the game complexity. But furthermore... what people call luck is usually a chance event evaluated as either very good or very bad, but chance per se is an influence which often goes unnoticed and may be entirely neutral in its evaluation. It's the very fact you did not control the outcome which leaves it to chance, how the chance result evaluates is entirely tangential to this conversation.

The mere fact you can model something in a particular way does not prove the model correct, that's an absurdity. And are you even talking about chess, or now some other game, why is this relevant...? There are different mechanisms for producing random events, they're not all easily equated. A coin flip we think of as uncontrollable, i.e. its outcome can't be effected by skill in an obvious way. But if you can imagine someone did practice really hard and master coin flipping - precisely applying a consistent amount of force, flipping the coin at a certain angle, over years - to where they could get heads 55% of the time - well again, they're just simply cultivating the ability to control an outcome, in this case slightly reducing the influence of chance. On the other hand, there are mechanisms which prevent the player from having any control over the outcome whatsoever (like drawing a random card - for the sake of argument, at least) - and in these cases... there is simply no skill in that aspect of the game, i.e. the game just has complete indeterminacy, i.e. this spectrum has just been reduced to a point. This isn't how the "randomness" in chess works, on chess it's on account of the games complexity, i.e. it can readily be controlled.

There's really nothing new or noteworthy here and I have a lot of other posts to go, so...I will just say that the bolded section above is just you strawmanning again.

DiogenesDue
Optimissed wrote:

I'll pick you up on one oversight though @playerafar. Dio and I seem to be enjoying a completely civil relationship just now. You didn't notice that, did you! Just your childishness, I suppose.

My relationship with any poster is civil when they are also civil. That just never lasts very long with you in the mix. A consistent trend that is not hard to observe in action.

DiogenesDue
Kotshmot wrote:

[new iteration of same argument removed]

I'd be happy to discuss with someone who is genuinely open to debate and test the subject of luck, however my suspicion is that it's only you here who could even semi legitimately hold the position of no luck in chess.

Nice try. Appeals to ego like this would work on an Optimissed or ibrust. I was serious though, I have no intention of spending hours and hours going back through the same steps that have been repeated several times before in this thread, they all ended in the same impasse and this time would be no different.