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Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

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DiogenesDue
DiogenesDue
Apr 17, 2022
0
#481
LeeEuler wrote:

There was no assumptions. It is definitionally what you said. There are only two cases to consider:

1) you reject any prior (i.e. you always say the outcome, whether hit or miss, "was not random"), in which case you are vacuously demonstrative of the fallacy or

2) your prior is the information I provided, which only points to the negative outcome, and so your conclusion, that "it was not random chance that he connected" rests exclusively on the information that he actually connected. Whereas if you actually did have information that lent credence to his ability, like seeing the "components of a swing of [his] bat" or something similar (like maybe he played behind two major leaguers in high school, and was a great hitter in middle school), then your conclusion might have been built on the prior information (and you might have been able to more correctly identify the skillful batter who missed from a non-skillful batter who connected, for example). 

The fact that you need multiple trials to parse skill/competency from luck/randomness, whether it be in baseball, law, finance, or chess, means that luck is inherent in the activity. Nothing humans do is fully deterministic.

"There were no assumptions", I assume you meant wink.png.

You're looking at this bass ackwards.  Being one iota deterministic is all that is required for something to be skill based.  Once a player makes any decision to make a move in the game of chess, their effort is skill based because there's no luck factor built into chess at the turn-based move level...good moves will show various skills and bad moves will show corresponding lack of skills. 

If you want to say that there is *luck* *in* a *game*, then that luck must be built into the game itself as a factor that exists regardless of the player involved and sans any application of skill by the players.   When you buy Monopoly, the game comes with a pair of dice, and uses randomly shuffled cards.  Those factors are what constitute luck in a game.

For chess, this only occurs in initial piece selection.  If you develop a chess engine, you will use the random number generator to select white/black, and perhaps to create a fudge factor for the engine to make random mistakes, so that the engine can play at pseudo-beginner level.  There's no other place for it.  There is no other luck in chess.  A PGN encapsulates everything meaningful in a game of chess.  Now show me the notation tags that denote "luck".  Anything you cannot represent in a PGN is not part of the game of chess, it's just an environmental factor external to the game itself.  What you ate that morning, the player that coughed at the wrong moment, the tournament pairings, your restroom break, the rollup vinyl board whose corners won't stay down...all external factors.

I'll go you one further.  If 2 Super GMs exactly replay a game from 2 other GMs decades before, then that is not a new game.  It's the same game.  In the same way that no matter what orchestra performs Beethoven's Fifth, it's still Beethoven's Fifth.

You need to learn to see the game of chess for the logical construct that it is, and each played game as an instantiation of that construct, to understand why there's no luck in the game of chess beyond color selection.

LeeEuler
LeeEuler
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Apr 17, 2022
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#482
btickler wrote:
LeeEuler wrote:

There was no assumptions. It is definitionally what you said. There are only two cases to consider:

1) you reject any prior (i.e. you always say the outcome, whether hit or miss, "was not random"), in which case you are vacuously demonstrative of the fallacy or

2) your prior is the information I provided, which only points to the negative outcome, and so your conclusion, that "it was not random chance that he connected" rests exclusively on the information that he actually connected. Whereas if you actually did have information that lent credence to his ability, like seeing the "components of a swing of [his] bat" or something similar (like maybe he played behind two major leaguers in high school, and was a great hitter in middle school), then your conclusion might have been built on the prior information (and you might have been able to more correctly identify the skillful batter who missed from a non-skillful batter who connected, for example). 

The fact that you need multiple trials to parse skill/competency from luck/randomness, whether it be in baseball, law, finance, or chess, means that luck is inherent in the activity. Nothing humans do is fully deterministic.

"There were no assumptions", I assume you meant .

You're looking at this bass ackwards.  Being one iota deterministic is all that is required for something to be skill based.  If you want to say that there is *luck* *in* a *game*, then that luck must be built into the game itself as a factor that exists regardless of the player involved and sans any application of skill by the players.   When you buy Monopoly, the game comes with a pair of dice, and uses randomly shuffled cards.  Those factors are what constitute luck in a game.

For chess, this only occurs in initial piece selection.  If you develop a chess engine, you will use the random number generator to select white/black, and perhaps to create a fudge factor for the engine to make random mistakes, so that the engine can play at pseudo-beginner level.  There's no other place for it. 

There is no such thing as iota deterministic. Something is either deterministic or non-deterministic. In non-deterministic systems, luck is inherent within the system. If you cannot categorize, with a 0% false positive and 0% false negative, the relative competencies of players after a single trial, then there is definitionally luck within the act itself.

You are very close to gaining understanding with your monopoly example. In the same way that luck is built in to the roll of a dice, luck is built in to the game of chess by virtue of having to select a move. Just as how a person is not exhibiting skill when they roll a dice, a person is not necessarily exhibiting skill when they select a move. You have say a 1-in-50 chance of selecting the "correct" move in any random position. They could even choose their move by rolling a dice if that helps you imagine! Someone with no knowledge of the rules of chess could take a given position and select the correct move, whereas a GM might make an incorrect move in the same one. 

By only looking at the outcome (good move vs. bad move, hit vs. miss, conviction vs. acquittal, etc.) as indicative of skill within the trial, you are being fallacious in your reasoning

DiogenesDue
DiogenesDue
Apr 17, 2022
0
#483
LeeEuler wrote:

There is no such thing as iota deterministic. Something is either deterministic or non-deterministic. In non-deterministic systems, luck is inherent within the system. If you cannot categorize, with a 0% false positive and 0% false negative, the relative competencies of players after a single trial, then there is definitionally luck within the act itself.

You are very close to gaining understanding with your monopoly example. In the same way that luck is built in to the roll of a dice, luck is built in to the game of chess by virtue of having to select a move. Just as how a person is not exhibiting skill when they roll a dice, a person is not necessarily exhibiting skill when they select a move. You have say a 1-in-50 chance of selecting the "correct" move in any random position. They could even choose their move by rolling a dice if that helps you imagine! Someone with no knowledge of the rules of chess could take a given position and select the correct move, whereas a GM might make an incorrect move in the same one. 

By only looking at the outcome (good move vs. bad move, hit vs. miss, conviction vs. acquittal, etc.) as indicative of skill within the trial, you are being fallacious in your reasoning

Lol, I was trying to talk to you in your own flawed parlance wink.png.

So, if we were to agree that determinism is binary, then your statement "nothing humans do is fully deterministic" is inaccurate/flawed.  It would be "nothing humans do is deterministic", end stop.

Your "roll a die" premise is correct insofar as rolling for each and every possible candidate each move is done.  You posited limiting the die roll to 50 candidates...that would be skill based.  The moment you eliminate a single move from the random roll, that move selection becomes skill based.  But that argument is disingenuous, because nobody plays chess this way, ever.  Not even the first time beginner does this.

You are being fallacious in your understanding of game design wink.png.  You cannot separate what is included within a game of chess and what is incidental to it.

Explain the luck in a game of Tic-Tac-Toe, other than selecting who gets Xs.

LeeEuler
LeeEuler
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Apr 17, 2022
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#484

He is absolutely right.  Thats why in my previous statement i ended on this point by saying you are now admitting that skill is there regardless of how high the level.   You can't let go of your believe that anything that is not skill is therefore luck.    But what I'm telling you is that there is only levels of skill,  not luck.  


And you saying that someone moving there piece is a total random choice,  is not only ludicrous when compared to the roll of a dice,   but comes from your need to prove that luck is in everything.    This is why you totally ignore the very definitions of the words you are trying to debate.   Because you are literally pointing at something that is a skill,  and calling it luck to desperately prove there is luck involved.  Again this tells me you also do not htink speechess is "real" chess.  Because you again go back to focusing on accuracy which is why I found your denigration of Vaissly Ivanchuk absolutely disgusting.     You don't compare skills to luck to determin level of skill,  you compare to the skill of other players,  because this is a competitive sport something you clearly have no understanding of.   Take your head out of your books lmao.

And you keep explaining that btickler is only looking at the outcome,  when i assume this is the reason he bought up consistency which is important.  Absolutely you don't look at one game to determine skill.   But that is not because it means luck is invovled,  its because you have to again determine the skill in relation to other players.   Not some imaginary force you can't even describe or control.

"Thats why in my previous statement i ended on this point by saying you are now admitting that skill is there regardless of how high the level." what are you talking about? In all my posts on the topic, I have been consistent: chess is a game of skill with elements of luck. Just like golf is a skill-based game with elements of luck. And baseball is skill-based with elements of luck. In all the above, that goes for all levels of play.

"which is why I found your denigration of Vaissly Ivanchuk absolutely disgusting."- you either don't know what denigration means like you didn't know what deterministic means, or you incorrectly think that mentioning how different strong players can have different variations in their play is a put down rather than descriptive. There is nothing wrong with being a more volatile player. In fact, players with high variation in their outcomes, whether it be in chess or another sport, are often fan favorites because they are often much more exciting than the "Steady Eddy".

"because this is a competitive sport something you clearly have no understanding of. Take your head out of your books lmao."- Again, I don't know why you keep bringing up speed chess and chess as a sport, but for what it's worth, I can almost guarantee that I played a sport (baseball) at a higher level than you or most anyone in the world really. The 1%'s 1%. But again, this have nothing to do with the topic at hand

" you totally ignore the very definitions of the words you are trying to debate."- I will use any reasonable definition, but I've been using luck ="success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions" and skill="the ability to do something well". If you can't determine one's ability to do something well after one trial, then you are admitting that their success or failure can brought about by chance

DiogenesDue
DiogenesDue
Apr 17, 2022
0
#485
mpaetz wrote:

     I once saw Willie Mays duck out of the way of a wild fastball coming at his head. The ball missed him but hit the bat and bloopped down the third-base line for a double. According to the definition of "luck" some posters here insist upon using, that must have been skill. Willie stood on second base laughing uproariously,. Teammates and oppponents joined on,and postgame comments all talked about how the best player in the game didn't really need such a stroke of LUCK.

     Any activity in which something as inconsistent and unpredictable as a human being is involved cannot fail to have some element of chance involved.

You are limiting your scope to Willy Mays and the actions he took.  The wild pitch caused the double, and that was due to a lack of skill on the part of the pitcher.  Wild pitches are not random luck.

Listing complexity and unpredictability as proof of random chance doesn't work.  Weather isn't "lucky" or random chance.  We simply lack the means to accurately predict it.

Even so, that is immaterial.  We're not talking about the physical world here.  The context of a chess game is quite narrow, and has no physical components, actually.  The discrete "things" that are part and parcel of a chess game are limited.  Physical board and pieces vs. online play or even blindfold simuls, human players vs. engines, visual representation or verbal moves...all incidental.

LeeEuler
LeeEuler
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Apr 17, 2022
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#486

Explain the luck in a game of Tic-Tac-Toe, other than selecting who gets Xs.

Fully is used for emphasis ("Happy Birthday to you"). That does not make it either inaccurate or flawed.

I use 1 in 50 to give an explicit example. Obviously, if you are eliminating moves, you are exhibiting some skill. But this topic is about relative skill, you vs your opponent. The next level up is that among similarly talented players who can correctly narrow down to a few candidate moves, there is still elements of luck in their selection. After assuming baseline competence relative to their rating, your prior on each possible move changes (no longer a uniform distribution; more skilled players are more likely to select from a handful of candidate moves). Even relative to your opponent, there is still elements of luck in such a selection (remember, you must make a move). 

Yes, tic-tac-toe is another good example of a game with elements of luck that is even simpler to understand. You have a 1 in 9 chance of selecting the "correct" square. In any given move, someone with no knowledge of the rules can make a correct move. Nothing about that is due to their ability, but by random chance happenstance. It is built into the very game play. At any given time, there is at least a 1 in 9 chance you select the correct move, even with no knowledge of the rules. Now of course, after enough trials, you can largely parse out skill from luck. But that again has nothing to do with luck being inherent in the game itself.

DiogenesDue
DiogenesDue
Apr 17, 2022
0
#487
LeeEuler wrote:

Fully is used for emphasis ("Happy Birthday to you"). That does not make it either inaccurate or flawed.

I use 1 in 50 to give an explicit example. Obviously, if you are eliminating moves, you are exhibiting some skill. But this topic is about relative skill, you vs your opponent. The next level up is that among similarly talented players who can correctly narrow down to a few candidate moves, there is still elements of luck in their selection. After assuming baseline competence relative to their rating, your prior on each possible move changes (no longer a uniform distribution; more skilled players are more likely to select from a handful of candidate moves). Even relative to your opponent, there is still elements of luck in such a selection (remember, you must make a move). 

Yes, tic-tac-toe is another good example of a game with elements of luck that is even simpler to understand. You have a 1 in 9 chance of selecting the "correct" square. In any given move, someone with no knowledge of the rules can make a correct move. Nothing about that is due to their ability, but by random chance happenstance. It is built into the very game play. At any given time, there is at least a 1 in 9 chance you select the correct move, even with no knowledge of the rules. Now of course, after enough trials, you can largely parse out skill from luck. But that again has nothing to do with luck being inherent in the game itself.

There's no luck in Tic-Tac-Toe beyond selection of who goes first, just like Chess.

Someone playing basketball can turn around and throw the ball out of bounds in a semi-random direction (it would not actually be random because they are choosing it) every time they get the ball.  Are they playing the game of basketball?  Not really.

P.S. "Fully" is not for emphasis.  There are words that imply only emphasis.  Fully implies a spectrum of possible states.

LeeEuler
LeeEuler
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Apr 17, 2022
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#488

"Once he said "correct"  move,   I immediately thought of Levon Aronian describing the strategy for winning blitz games after winning the tata teel ,  as describing its not always about picking the "correct" move,  but simply posing the hardest questions to your opponent.    So does that mean he lacks skills when he wins blitz matches consistently?   I always also think of Hikaru saying don't dwell in the fact you will blunder more playing bullet,  relish in the fact you will win more making less blunders then your opponent. "

There is a reason I put quotes around correct. Chess hasn't been solved, engines disagree on which move is best, there are practical decision with time, meta decisions with tournament standings etc.

Neither the Aronian nor Hikaru points have anything to do with luck vs. skill. In any given position, in any given game, a player makes a choice of move. Labeling the outcome of that move as purely based on their skill ignores the fact that in said position, in said game, there was an underlying prior probability associated with selecting any move

LeeEuler
LeeEuler
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Apr 17, 2022
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#489
btickler wrote:
LeeEuler wrote:

Fully is used for emphasis ("Happy Birthday to you"). That does not make it either inaccurate or flawed.

I use 1 in 50 to give an explicit example. Obviously, if you are eliminating moves, you are exhibiting some skill. But this topic is about relative skill, you vs your opponent. The next level up is that among similarly talented players who can correctly narrow down to a few candidate moves, there is still elements of luck in their selection. After assuming baseline competence relative to their rating, your prior on each possible move changes (no longer a uniform distribution; more skilled players are more likely to select from a handful of candidate moves). Even relative to your opponent, there is still elements of luck in such a selection (remember, you must make a move). 

Yes, tic-tac-toe is another good example of a game with elements of luck that is even simpler to understand. You have a 1 in 9 chance of selecting the "correct" square. In any given move, someone with no knowledge of the rules can make a correct move. Nothing about that is due to their ability, but by random chance happenstance. It is built into the very game play. At any given time, there is at least a 1 in 9 chance you select the correct move, even with no knowledge of the rules. Now of course, after enough trials, you can largely parse out skill from luck. But that again has nothing to do with luck being inherent in the game itself.

There's no luck in Tic-Tac-Toe beyond selection of who goes first, just like Chess.

Someone playing basketball can turn around and throw the ball out of bounds in a semi-random direction (it would not actually be random because they are choosing it) every time they get the ball.  Are they playing the game of basketball?  Not really.

Yes, you are starting to grasp it! A player who wildly flings a full court shot at the end of a half and makes it, similar to the golfer who misses the green 1000 straight times and holes out the 1001st, isn't exhibiting skill in any measurable way. They are bad players who got lucky, not bad players who suddenly gained immense skill and then went back to being bad

DiogenesDue
DiogenesDue
Apr 17, 2022
0
#490
LeeEuler wrote:

Yes, you are starting to grasp it! A player who wildly flings a full court shot at the end of a half and makes it, similar to the golfer who misses the green 1000 straight times and holes out the 1001st, isn't exhibiting skill in any measurable way. They are bad players who got lucky, not bad players who suddenly gained immense skill and then went back to being bad

On the contrary...you have started to grasp your mistake, which is why you had to (a) change from throwing out of bounds to throwing at the basket, and (b) qualify your statement with "in any measurable way".  wink.png

Thanks for admitting it's skill based when somebody makes a full court shot.  It doesn't matter that they cannot reproduce the result on demand...it's still skill based, and not random chance.  You are equating "bad player" with luck.  Lack of skill != luck.  The very fact that you call it "bad play" belies your conclusion.

LeeEuler
LeeEuler
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Apr 17, 2022
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#491
btickler wrote:
LeeEuler wrote:

Yes, you are starting to grasp it! A player who wildly flings a full court shot at the end of a half and makes it, similar to the golfer who misses the green 1000 straight times and holes out the 1001st, isn't exhibiting skill in any measurable way. They are bad players who got lucky, not bad players who suddenly gained immense skill and then went back to being bad

On the contrary...you have started to grasp your mistake, which is why you had to (a) change from throwing out of bounds to throwing at the basket, and (b) qualify your statement with "in any measurable way". 

Thanks for admitting it's skill based when somebody makes a full court shot.  It doesn't matter that they cannot reproduce the result on demand...it's still skill based, and not random chance.  You are equating "bad player" with luck.  Lack of skill != luck.  The very fact that you call it "bad play" belies your conclusion.

 

Incorrect again, but you do excel at making poor assumptions, I will give you credit there tongue.png.

I didn't change anything ("wildly flings a full court shot" does not imply "throwing at the basket") or ever say that luck couldn't be measured. Quantifying luck is actually what I'm paid to do for a living!

But like your previous errors, you have made a couple elementary oversights, mostly on definitions:

"You are equating "bad player" with luck"- definitely not. Bad players can perform above their expected outcome, or worse than their expected outcome. This does not mean that they magically got better or worse.

"The very fact that you call it "bad play" belies your conclusion."- I never called it bad play, so maybe you're making a similar error as before with your assumptions? I called the theoretical golfer a bad player though. Since that is what his history has taught us. 

LeeEuler
LeeEuler
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Apr 17, 2022
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#492
CooloutAC wrote:
LeeEuler wrote:

He is absolutely right.  Thats why in my previous statement i ended on this point by saying you are now admitting that skill is there regardless of how high the level.   You can't let go of your believe that anything that is not skill is therefore luck.    But what I'm telling you is that there is only levels of skill,  not luck.  


And you saying that someone moving there piece is a total random choice,  is not only ludicrous when compared to the roll of a dice,   but comes from your need to prove that luck is in everything.    This is why you totally ignore the very definitions of the words you are trying to debate.   Because you are literally pointing at something that is a skill,  and calling it luck to desperately prove there is luck involved.  Again this tells me you also do not htink speechess is "real" chess.  Because you again go back to focusing on accuracy which is why I found your denigration of Vaissly Ivanchuk absolutely disgusting.     You don't compare skills to luck to determin level of skill,  you compare to the skill of other players,  because this is a competitive sport something you clearly have no understanding of.   Take your head out of your books lmao.

And you keep explaining that btickler is only looking at the outcome,  when i assume this is the reason he bought up consistency which is important.  Absolutely you don't look at one game to determine skill.   But that is not because it means luck is invovled,  its because you have to again determine the skill in relation to other players.   Not some imaginary force you can't even describe or control.

"Thats why in my previous statement i ended on this point by saying you are now admitting that skill is there regardless of how high the level." what are you talking about? In all my posts on the topic, I have been consistent: chess is a game of skill with elements of luck. Just like golf is a skill-based game with elements of luck. And baseball is skill-based with elements of luck. In all the above, that goes for all levels of play.

"which is why I found your denigration of Vaissly Ivanchuk absolutely disgusting."- you either don't know what denigration means like you didn't know what deterministic means, or you incorrectly think that mentioning how different strong players can have different variations in their play is a put down rather than descriptive. There is nothing wrong with being a more volatile player. In fact, players with high variation in their outcomes, whether it be in chess or another sport, are often fan favorites because they are often much more exciting than the "Steady Eddy".

"because this is a competitive sport something you clearly have no understanding of. Take your head out of your books lmao."- Again, I don't know why you keep bringing up speed chess and chess as a sport, but for what it's worth, I can almost guarantee that I played a sport (baseball) at a higher level than you or most anyone in the world really. The 1%'s 1%. But again, this have nothing to do with the topic at hand

" you totally ignore the very definitions of the words you are trying to debate."- I will use any reasonable definition, but I've been using luck ="success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions" and skill="the ability to do something well". If you can't determine one's ability to do something well after one trial, then you are admitting that their success or failure can brought about by chance

 

lol the only element of luck you bought up in chess,  is rolling the dice for 50 moves,  which is something that does not even exist my friend.   There are no elements of luck in baseball or golf either.   The problem is you don't even know the definition of luck,  have yet to even research it.  Instead or trying to create your own definition which is why this is all a disingenuous debate with you.   This is why as btickler has stated,  you can't even separate luck outside the game from luck inside the game. 

Implying Vasily Ivanchuk games are "wildly variant" implying he gets lucky alot of the times to prove luck exists,  I find highly insulting.  

Your're right,  you playing baseball,  has nothing to do with what you were taught to believe about chess.   I bring up speed chess,  because you think accuracy determines skill by constantly pointing to "correct" moves being a deciding factor.     That is what you were taught about chess. This is also related to your obscene Ivanchuk comment.  This is the same argument people use to claim speed chess is not "real" chess.  Like many others in this thread,  i must assume you also have the same belief and this whole argument is you partly trying to affirm that.  


So I agree with your first definition.  But what do you mean by "do something well"? That requires a definition in itself.  Let me help you again.     Skill also is the ability to increase your chances from practice and knowledge.   I assume you forgot that part and thats why you brought up rolling of the dice in chess as a desperate attempt to equate it with random cards being dealt in poker.  Because you know otherwise there is nothing to fall into the definition of luck within the game.   Do you realize how desperate and disingenuous that makes you look?    

I use dice as an illustration for those capable of any semblance of abstraction. 

"The problem is you don't even know the definition of luck, have yet to even research it."- As has consistently been the case with you, you are either not reading or not understanding the comment you are replying to. The reply of mine you are quoting says "I will use any reasonable definition, but I've been using luck ='success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions'"

"Implying Vasily Ivanchuk games are 'wildly variant' implying he gets lucky alot of the times to prove luck exists, I find highly insulting. "- There is no implication and I never said they were wildly variant. It is a fact that certain players have more variation in their results than others. By recognizing this, I am actually doing exactly the opposite of what you are doing, which is saying anytime he played poorly, it's because he was just a bad player rather than the more realistic approach of observing that there is natural variance in his playing style; he didn't just magically become better or worse overnight.

DiogenesDue
DiogenesDue
Apr 17, 2022
0
#493
LeeEuler wrote:

Incorrect again, but you do excel at making poor assumptions, I will give you credit there .

I didn't change anything ("wildly flings a full court shot" does not imply "throwing at the basket") or ever say that luck couldn't be measured. Quantifying luck is actually what I'm paid to do for a living!

But like your previous errors, you have made a couple elementary oversights, mostly on definitions:

"You are equating "bad player" with luck"- definitely not. Bad players can perform above their expected outcome, or worse than their expected outcome. This does not mean that they magically got better or worse.

"The very fact that you call it "bad play" belies your conclusion."- I never called it bad play, so maybe you're making a similar error as before with your assumptions? I called the theoretical golfer a bad player though. Since that is what his history has taught us. 

What you do for a living is largely irrelevant in this case, unless you work for Hasbro or something?  In fact, it seems to make it harder for you to see the distinction between the confines of a game and the rest of the world.  One is consistently ordered and narrow in scope, the other is vast and prone to entropy wink.png.  We're not talking about environmental luck in the physical world, we're talking about luck in the context of game design for a game that has no required physical manifestation whatsoever.   No Actuary required.

"wildly flings a full court shot" does not imply "throwing at the basket"

Ermm, nooo...it implies exactly that.  Or maybe you don't know that the word "shot" means?  Aim is implicit in the definition.  Without it, the correct word would be "throw".

"I never called it bad play"

So, your premise is that using the phrase "bad player" does *not* imply the existence of "bad play"?  For a bad player to exist, the concept of bad play must also exist.  Surely, this is not in dispute?

LeeEuler
LeeEuler
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Apr 17, 2022
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#494

and you said you played baseball?   So everytime someone gets a homerun they got lucky? cause they can't do it every time?   its not skillbased?   lmao....  I'm actually getting apalled. Clearly you are not even being honest at this point.   Keep ignoring the definitions of the very words.   Keep pretending you aren't looking for someway to explain why lower skilled players might beat a higher skilled player in a match,  Or why players who dont' always make the "correct" moves in chess might win,  even when super grand masters explain why.  Or that skill is not a factor even though you admit skill is always a factor.  You're a walking contradiction like most chess players.   I truly belief its the effect chess has on the brain,  or the effect the chess community had in programming you to believe chess should be played a certain way.    Good luck with that.  I hope you can handle the future of the sport.

 

I have been very consistent. I honestly don't know how you can't grasp what I am saying. In the future, quote precisely from the below paragraph when thinking about my argument: "Chess, and most games humans play, is skills-based with elements of luck built in by virtue of it's very design. That is to say, people can improve their performance by improving their skills, but that in any given position or any given game, it is fallacious to categorize one's results as being exclusively based on their skill relative to their opponent (since in any position, a player must make a move, and since there is an associated prior distribution with any move).  This overly simplistic categorization ignores the randomness inherent in any non-deterministic system. As a proxy for where an activity sits on the luck-to-skill spectrum, one can look at the least upper bound for the number of trials needed to completely determine one's relative skill/competency at the activity" 

 

To address your other points:

"and you said you played baseball?   So everytime someone gets a homerun they got lucky? cause they can't do it every time?   its not skillbased? "- no, baseball like chess is definitely skills based. No, every homerun isn't luck. Also, nothing I've said in this thread has ever implied anything like this. I only brought up baseball because you said I had no understanding of a competitive sports

"Or that skill is not a factor even though you admit skill is always a factor"- nowhere have I ever said skill is not a factor. Obviously skill is a factor, and by far the dominant one at that. This has been my stance from the beginning. Perhaps you are confusing me with yourself when you say luck is never a factor? Skill and luck, both of them, impact any action on the chessboard. This has been my stance since I first replied. A skillful player can get lucky and a skillful player can get unlucky. A lower rated player can get lucky and they can get unlucky. As I've explained over and over, as the number of trials/moves/games increase, the role of luck decreases. That is why I said earlier, nobody ever had a lucky career, but they for sure had lucky games or moves! 

LeeEuler
LeeEuler
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Apr 17, 2022
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#495

we're talking about luck in the context of game design 

....

So, your premise is that using the phrase "bad player" does *not* imply the existence of "bad play"?  For a bad player to exist, the concept of bad play must also exist.  Surely, this is not in dispute?

Yes, within the confines of chess itself, within it's very game design, there is randomness inherent in each move selection. You have a choice of a move, and before you ever put any thought into your move at all, there is a probability associated with each move.

A bad player is one who repeatedly makes bad shots. A bad shot does not make a player bad. Similarly a good player is one who repeatedly makes good shots. A good shot does not make a player good. Think heavily on this as it is the crux of your misunderstanding. 

I can't reply all night, but if you all want to learn more or are still confused, buy the book I mentioned, "Fooled By Randomness". It's a best seller, not too dense, and approachable for basically anyone.

DiogenesDue
DiogenesDue
Apr 17, 2022
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#496
LeeEuler wrote:

Yes, within the confines of chess itself, within it's very game design, there is randomness inherent in each move selection. You have a choice of a move, and before you ever put any thought into your move at all, there is a probability associated with each move.

Meaningless in this context.  But I suppose if you want to run a betting pool for the next WCC...

A bad player is one who repeatedly makes bad shots. A bad shot does not make a player bad. Similarly a good player is one who repeatedly makes good shots. A good shot does not make a player good. Think heavily on this as it is the crux of your misunderstanding. 

Assumptions, again.  Where did I imply otherwise?  I'm still not sure you even understand the distinction that makes your points moot for the most part.

I can't reply all night, but if you all want to learn more or are still confused, buy the book I mentioned, "Fooled By Randomness". It's a best seller, not too dense, and approachable for basically anyone.

You can stop replying any time, you're not doing me any favors.  I assume you are replying because you are uncomfortable letting my points percolate overlong with other posters wink.png...but there's nothing particularly revelatory here for me.  As for "you all", I am here representing myself, not to shore up anyone else's arguments or to associate myself with anybody.

technical_knockout
technical_knockout
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Apr 17, 2022
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#497

chess is a turn-based game of skill played between two players with the goal of checkmate in mind, usually over dozens of moves:

just as in tennis, the more skilled player will prevail over the course of a match, regardless of rank, individual points, ball dribbling over the tape, etc...

sure, you can play roulette on a chess board by rolling dice for the moves that you select, but then you're not really playing chess, are you?

accidentally settling on a good move is not the same thing as playing a good move;  any more than lip synching should be considered singing just because they look the same.

LeeEuler
LeeEuler
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Apr 17, 2022
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#498

"you all" is to anyone who is ignorant about the role of randomness in everything humans do.

In any activity, if you can not completely categorize something after a single trial (meaning 0% false positive, 0% false negative) with any amount of initial conditions (relative elo in chess, handicap in golf, etc.) then the activity itself has built in randomness. 

If your determination of more skilled vs. lesser skilled is based on the outcome itself (win or lose, hit or miss, convict or acquit, make money or lose money etc.), rather than any sort of prior (elo, batting history, conviction rate, historical RoR etc.) you are being fallacious with your reasoning as shown earlier: "The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy is when outcomes are analyzed out of context, giving the illusion of causation rather than attributing the outcomes to chance. The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy fails to take randomness into account when determining cause and effect, instead emphasizing how outcomes are similar rather than how they are different."

That is why sometimes the more skilled player doesn't prevail in a match, why higher-ranked teams want longer series in the playoffs, and why the golfer who misses the green 1000 straight times and then holes out on the 1001st isn't suddenly skillful in his shot. He's just a bad player who got lucky

DiogenesDue
DiogenesDue
Apr 17, 2022
0
#499
LeeEuler wrote:

"you all" is to anyone who is ignorant about the role of randomness in everything humans do.

In any activity, if you can not completely categorize something after a single trial (meaning 0% false positive, 0% false negative) with any amount of initial conditions (relative elo in chess, handicap in golf, etc.) then the activity itself has built in randomness. 

If your determination of more skilled vs. lesser skilled is based on the outcome itself (win or lose, hit or miss, convict or acquit, make money or lose money etc.), rather than any sort of prior (elo, batting history, conviction rate, historical RoR etc.) you are being fallacious with your reasoning as shown earlier: "The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy is when outcomes are analyzed out of context, giving the illusion of causation rather than attributing the outcomes to chance. The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy fails to take randomness into account when determining cause and effect, instead emphasizing how outcomes are similar rather than how they are different."

That is why sometimes the more skilled player doesn't prevail in a match, why higher-ranked teams want longer series in the playoffs, and why the golfer who misses the green 1000 straight times and then holes out on the 1001st isn't suddenly skillful in his shot. He's just a bad player who got lucky

Not being able to accurately measure something doesn't negate it's existence, as any religious person will happily point out to you when you try to tell them there's no God.  Not having enough data points to measure skill (which is a range, not a discrete value) doesn't mean it's therefore random...you are misinterpreting the Sharpshooter fallacy, and it does not support your position.  This is fairly common for posters here.  Ask Ponz, who wouldn't know a real straw man argument if it walked up and slapped him in the face. wink.png

Ziryab
Ziryab
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Apr 17, 2022
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#500
btickler wrote:
 

Not being able to accurately measure something doesn't negate it's existence, as any religious person will happily point out to you when you try to tell them there's no God.  

 

Really? You think this is convincing?

You were doing well.