Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

Кто русский

losing control of a piece whilst sneezing is a case of having inept fine motor skills:

i prescribe a rigorous regimen of mario platformers to bring them up to 'snuff', while reminding you that tournament rules have nothing to do with the game.

you could just as easily imagine a scenario wherein you are playing a game with your buddy at a bar, sneeze into his beer while queening (knocking both kings over in the process), then he proceeds to slap you before resetting the pieces, buying a fresh, non-snotty guiness & continuing to lose.

in both cases you are playing chess.

Wait, what? lol

Edit: Never mind, I see what you're saying.

I would argue that luck doesn't exist in the rules of chess -- but luck does exist in reality, external to the game.

And chess is played in reality, therefore, luck can influence the circumstances (and the outcome) of the game.

Also, there are variants of the game where luck can be considered a part of it.

Hand and Brain, for example. Or Fog of War.

Or any variant where the rolling of dice is used to decide which piece to move ...

     All you have to say is that the rules of chess contain no element of chance in move generation. No one has disputed that. Your utter inability to comprehend (or stubborn refusal to admit) that chess is played in the real world seems to have led you to the fallacious  conclusion that you have proved the non-existence of chance in the game.

     You have acknowledged that winning and losing are an essential part of chess. You admit than in a few extraordinary instances winning/losing is NOT the result of the moves played. In this limited sense luck does affect chess.

     Once I was playing otb vs a doctor when his pager went off and he learned that a patient was in a crisis. He immediately resigned and rushed to the hospital. The result of that game was in no way related to the moves we had made. It was bad luck for him, good luck for me. All the other similar rare examples cited in this thread are simply real-world circumstances intruding into the play of a chess game despite their lack of inclusion in the basic rules. We may wish that all games proceed normally to a deserved conclusion,  but chess regulations are not binding on the outside world so sometimes everyday reality intrudes into the game.

people keep confusing the game of chess itself with gambling (tournament entry fees/prizes & rating points).

if i'm playing shot chess at a party, my opponent imbibes one too many & dies, did i just get lucky?

roulette balls don't decide where they're going to land any more than chess PLAYERS (by definition, trying to achieve the goal of checkmate) could randomly guess where they are going to move to.

sure, you could reach over, grab the ball & place it on your bet number before it's done spinning... but then you wouldn't be playing roulette!

also, they might break your thumbs.  😬

Chess can be played with nothing more than a verbal exchange of moves formulated completely in the mind of the players, with no board or pieces.  The physical aspect is a requirement of the human players mired in a physical universe, not the game.  So, it's not part of the game...you know, like luck is not part of the game past color selection.  

You would think people would get this now that chess has moved online to such a degree.

     Yet the decisive element in an online chess game might be a storm that disables the electrical grid in one player's location, causing them to lose by abandonment. I am not claiming that chance is an integral part of every chess game. But no human activity is so perfect as to be immune to ANY unpredictable, unforseen, unplanned caprice of fate. So chess cannot be 100 percent free of luck

playing pairs of games negates the color advantage, like switching serves in tennis.

We're just arguing different definitions of what a chess game is.  I consider a chess game to be a logical construct comprised of the moves of the game.  If you pull a game out of a database and replay it, that's a chess game, a discrete instance of the game of chess, created with a set of rules that forms the bounds of what a game of chess is, stored in a non-physical format, because physical form is not required or part of a game of chess.  As such, all the external factors you call luck are happening to the players, and are not part of the game itself. 

You will not find any reference to Paul Morphy's upset stomach due to eating a bad burrito when you replay the Opera game.  And even if you did...avoiding foods that might mess up your game is a skill.  He won anyway.  Due to skill .

Running with the bad burrito...if two players arrive at a tournament and sit down for their game, and in time trouble one player has to run to the restroom because they arrived 90 seconds before the clock started, while the other is sitting comfortably having arrived 45 minutes early and taking care of business...that's not "bad luck" for the player with the bladder issues.  

You are not able to separate the presence of luck from the actual selection of a move anymore than you can separate luck from the selection of a suitcase in Deal Or No Deal. 

I like the two examples provided by llama and Fezzik that help show how a. the actual outcome of a move is not completely based on a player's skill in selecting the move, since "good" moves can be played for bad reasons, or "bad" moves can be played for good reasons and b. the variation we see in results is not exclusively based on an underlying change in skill.

1) "Regarding luck, one fun example is the, at times inverse, relationship between knowledge and performance captured by the saying "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." It's easy to imagine sacrifices (or other situations) where we might say "only a beginner or a GM would play such a move" and it works for bad moves too. For example knowing enough to feel threatened and defend, but not knowing enough to realize the threat can be ignored."

2) "Have Houdini play 50 games against Rybka. Try to predict the outcome of each game before they start. Houdini will win the match, but there's no way to predict which games it will in advance. This randomness is "luck". It's why we need longer matches to determine the better player!"

So in your world, if a beginner plays 1. a4, and black plays 1. ... h6, and then an entire game ensures with all other pieces being exchanged and white winning the pawn race by 1 move...that's luck, for white. 

"Whew, sure is lucky I moved that extra square on the first move!"

No...that's a lack of skill on the part of both players.

1) No, taking my definition, tacking an or statement at the end of it, and adding a whole separate unrelated thought that so far is shared by nobody impartial is not "based on my definition" anymore than me saying that "luck=Sucess or failure based on random chance rather then ones own actions,  or not being able to increase ones chance of success with practice or knowledge, or the inherent part of every chess game" is based on your definition. I explain this crystal clearly in post #913, #927, and #959.

If you have an alternate definition, that is fine. But there is no evidence that your definition is shared, supported, or implied by anybody else. You can say the definition of dog is "a four wheeled motor vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine" but that doesn't mean others use dog the same way. When we talk about the definition of words, it is necessary that the rough meaning is shared by the people who use it. 

That is why when I said that I'd take any reasonable definition, reasonable was used to signify something akin to/implied by/similar to/ etc. how the word is commonly used. Importantly that does not mean verbatim from third party sources, but when all these impartial sources never mention anything like the second half of your statement, there is strong evidence that your definition is not shared by others. 

MW: "a force that brings good fortune or adversity" or "the events or circumstances that operate for or against an individual"

Dictionary.com: "the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person's life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities" or "good fortune; advantage or success, considered as the result of chance" or "a combination of circumstances, events, etc., operating by chance to bring good or ill to a person" 

OED: "success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions"

I have not seen anyone else define luck as anything like "not being able to increase ones chance of success with practice or knowledge".

Is there any reason why your definition is a verbatim definition from google, except for the whole second half? Perhaps you acknowledge that by using an accepted definition from an outside source, that luck is an element of chess?

2)  "In fact just like you people can't provide actual examples of luck in chess..."

The post you quote gives examples ""good" moves can be played for bad reasons, or "bad" moves can be played for good reasons" i.e. the outcome of a move, whether it be good or bad, is not exclusively linked to your skill in selecting that move. 

3) "Of course you can separate it, must like mpaetz has to use an example of lightning striking to prove his point, you used the example of dice rolling. Neither of those things exist in chess!!"

While I personally view things outside the game of chess as intrinsic to and inextricable from the actual game of chess itself, for the sake of argument, I agree that there is a difference and that the things outside of the actual game are not built in to chess. But that has never been part of my argument. My argument has always been that move selection, which is built in to the game itself, has elements of luck. Even among strong players. Not skill or luck. Both.

I don't mention dice here, but I did mention Deal Or No Deal. In both chess and Deal Or No Deal, a player selects among many possible choices. The outcome of your choice is not exclusively attributable to your skill in selecting. 

If your premise is that choosing your next chess move is only as informed a choice as selecting a prize box in a game show, then I think you've already lost the discussion.

Maybe games shows just need a version of puzzle rush to improve pattern recognition ...

"Deal or No Deal is 99% tactics..."

If beginners play down to a king pawn endgame, from that point forward, the outcome of the game is almost definitionally luck.

I have already shown in this thread how many other fields accept and even celebrate that both a. random variation in outcomes is not exclusively driven by underlying changes in skill (outcome=skill+luck) and b. luck is an inherent part of the field.

For example trading: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2353072?seq=2

and baseball: https://sabr.org/journal/article/calculating-skill-and-luck-in-major-league-baseball/

Without prior information (ratings, asking rationale behind moves, etc.) and multiple trials, one is not able to parse luck vs. skill from a single move.

"If your premise is that choosing your next chess move is only as informed a choice as selecting a prize box in a game show"

That is not my premise. That's why I said "not exclusively attributable to". 

Your implication is that they are very similar.  It's no mistake (or maybe I should say it wasn't luck) that you chose Deal or No Deal for it's obviously random results and then compared the two.  They are about as dissimilar as it gets.  Choosing a chess move relies on the player's own knowledge, skills, and preparation.  Playing Deal or No Deal is completely designed around a concept where the player has nothing to go on in terms of the contents of the suitcases...they are merely betting the odds based on the banker bids.  There is zero knowledge, no skills to apply, and nothing to prepare other than to brush up on odds-making in a blind scenario.

ratings are a measurement of prior performance:  the winner of a game of chess is the more skillful player of that particular game, whether due to more effective time-usage, better blunder-checking, more principled play, etc...

if the game is interrupted by life, then despite tournament rules (which are outside of the game's rules), or otherwise that prompt an immediate decision, the game never properly finished & could technically have been picked up at a later time.

we rely on computer engines to tell us the 'best' moves because they are far more skillful chess players than us, although since chess hasn't been solved we have no way to determine which move is actually the strongest in any given position, as alpha zero's demolition of stockfish showed us.      🙂

deciding on a top move by accident is still a choice.

"The only reason you can't parse luck from skill from a single move"

Woah, a breakthrough!