Forums

Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

Sort:
Optimissed

In practice, when I'm playing well, I virtually never choose more than five candidate moves. Time is limited and my thinking is that if I haven't chosen the best candidate move among the five then I'm not playing well at all. It's best to make the positive assumption and not throw good money after bad.

Then I usually assume that two moves can be eliminated quite quickly on a simplistic positional or tactical basis. I choose the two least likely moves to start with and proceed til I've eliminated two. Then I look more carefully for reasons to eliminate a third and when I have two, if there's time and the position is critical, I take my time and maybe devote five minutes to each move. I normally play quite fast and may have built up a resevoir of extra time, which I am now trying to convert into positional and tactical threats. There are occasions when the two remaining candidates seem about equal in value but are strikingly different from one-another. One might be tactical and the other positional. So that's when a game overview is necessary. Which is most likely to win if both are equal? Sometimes the evaluation is so equal that I have to guess which is better. On a strategic basis, which seems to give the higher percentage of winning chances?

mpaetz
OctopusOnSteroids wrote:

I'll try to get through once again.... If the accidental incidences that you refer to, are luck in chess-

Then anything deliberate that you constrast that with, is ability in chess.

It is as simple as that.

Nonsense. Not everything that happens to chess players during a game must be either luck or chess skill. Just another senseless arbitrary "rule" that you have invented. A player physically restraining another, turning in a scoresheet with a false winner circled, getting caught using a smartphone, or any rules violation is patently NOT chess skill on the part of the opponent who will receive the benefit of a win when the offender is penalized. Nor is it luck--remember that every definition of luck I have furnished explicitly states that luck has nothing to do with a person's own efforts/abilities. All these things you mistakenly claim I believe to be luck are the result of the other player's poor choice of attempted winning strategies. The opponent's attempts are no different (in deciding the winner/loser) than their overlooking your back-rank mate. When a player adopts a losing strategy or tactic, the unfavorable result is of their own making.

On the other hand, should you be suffering a royal butt-kicking otb when your opponent's spouse storms into the tournament hall, yells at and berates them before pulling out a pistol and shooting them, then you did luck out.

Optimissed
OctopusOnSteroids wrote:
mpaetz wrote:
OctopusOnSteroids wrote:

If any external lucky incidence that causes one to lose on time is luck in chess, then any opponent that decides to use force, and I'm talking force outside of the board, to make you lose on time must be ability in chess. Can't have one without the other. If thats what you propose then I give up.

Total bull. Again, I have never mentioned physical assaults, that is your own fantasy. NONE of my suggestions involved physical assault by a player on their opponent. If you can't even keep that straight after repeated denials, perhaps your reasoning powers are so feeble that you should "give up".

My whole point of "luck in chess" is the involvement of factors other than chess skill in the winning/losing of chess games. Watching your opponent's clock tick down to zero while they have mate in one available but he makes no move for some period of time is NOT "chess skill" on your part. It wasn't the players' chess skills that decided the games in question it was "events that are beyond control and seem subject to chance" (Collins Dictionary definition of luck).

I apparently cannot get through with logic to this poster.

I understand everything you're saying, you don't have to repeat. I understand every word, every point. The misunderstanding is on your side, and you dare call it "bull". What I'm saying is as follows.

You dont have to suggest anything about physical assaults, it LOGICALLY follows from what you DO say.

The problem is in what you consider can be said is "in chess."

You say that any external incident of chance that impacts the result is luck in chess. Then why isnt any external incident of one using their ability to help them win, ability in chess??

Sorry I think I've explained this with concrete examples, everything, he hasnt even attempted to refute this logic but thinks hes right by repeating the same thing. Someone who speaks nonlogic, help

It's breaking the rules to use violence and I don't agree with the conclusions but what Octopus is saying here does seem to be logical. He's never resorted to such arguments against me and perhaps he has used them here because his debating opponent has left a gap or made a mistake and so Octo is using reductio ad absurdum.

Chess147

First time checking out this thread and...wow. This whole website is like an episode of Tales Of The Unexpected crossed with The Twilight Zone AND Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Luck is involved when you rely on your opponent missing your massive blunder which gibes them an M1 on a plate.

Reclaimer_Reconnaissance

yes of course! there is a ton of luck involved. the thing about luck though is that it has to be acknowledged both ways. one person's fortune is the others misfortune.

OctopusOnSteroids
mpaetz wrote:
OctopusOnSteroids wrote:

I'll try to get through once again.... If the accidental incidences that you refer to, are luck in chess-

Then anything deliberate that you constrast that with, is ability in chess.

It is as simple as that.

Nonsense. Not everything that happens to chess players during a game must be either luck or chess skill. Just another senseless arbitrary "rule" that you have invented. A player physically restraining another, turning in a scoresheet with a false winner circled, getting caught using a smartphone, or any rules violation is patently NOT chess skill on the part of the opponent who will receive the benefit of a win when the offender is penalized. Nor is it luck--remember that every definition of luck I have furnished explicitly states that luck has nothing to do with a person's own efforts/abilities. All these things you mistakenly claim I believe to be luck are the result of the other player's poor choice of attempted winning strategies. The opponent's attempts are no different (in deciding the winner/loser) than their overlooking your back-rank mate. When a player adopts a losing strategy or tactic, the unfavorable result is of their own making.

On the other hand, should you be suffering a royal butt-kicking otb when your opponent's spouse storms into the tournament hall, yells at and berates them before pulling out a pistol and shooting them, then you did luck out.

Call it nonsense all you want but you can't even address the logic let alone refute it. Your position remains flawed and you don't know why. You clearly have practical knowledge Mr. Mpaetz, but it seems you cannot handle an abstract, logical discussion.

Well, I will add since you made the point earlier, and I paraphrase..

"How should chess.com know what caused one to time out? Only result matters."

Indeed. If somebody should use ways outside the game, chess.com wouldn't know and the result would stand.

mpaetz
Optimissed wrote:

It's breaking the rules to use violence and I don't agree with the conclusions but what Octopus is saying here does seem to be logical. He's never resorted to such arguments against me and perhaps he has used them here because his debating opponent has left a gap or made a mistake and so Octo is using reductio ad absurdum.

It's because he has no real argument to make. Note that he ignores several provided explicit definitions that luck is something divorced from "one's own efforts", meaning that nothing one of the players does to earn a loss-either deliberate rules violations or just poor play--can be counted as luck for their opponent.

OctopusOnSteroids

Mr Mpaetz I don't ignore anything, they're simply irrelevant in refuting my argument.

N_aranja
tresequis wrote:

I won a Live Blitz game against an opponent ("monsieur") after I badly blundered and he badly blundered twice. As I was about to checkmate him he told me I was winning because of "luck".

I definitely didn't play brilliantly and my rating is low (about 1450) but he played worse than me so I beat him. For me, that's not luck.

I have also sometimes been called "lucky" after an opponent has dominated me positionally, but then made a blunder I have checkmated him.

Can you get lucky in chess? Or are there only good moves and bad moves?

Optimissed
mpaetz wrote:
Optimissed wrote:

It's breaking the rules to use violence and I don't agree with the conclusions but what Octopus is saying here does seem to be logical. He's never resorted to such arguments against me and perhaps he has used them here because his debating opponent has left a gap or made a mistake and so Octo is using reductio ad absurdum.

It's because he has no real argument to make. Note that he ignores several provided explicit definitions that luck is something divorced from "one's own efforts", meaning that nothing one of the players does to earn a loss-either deliberate rules violations or just poor play--can be counted as luck for their opponent.

I'm not sure that luck and skill can be separated in the way you say definitions suggest, though. This subject and those like it are so susceptible to subjective preferences and interpretations and so I don't think it's possible to use definitions to support one's view without acknowledging that someone else may have defined luck in a very different way.

For instance, off the top of my head I might argue that although I attempt to channel whatever skill I can muster through my own efforts at chess, I must also acknowledge that I don't have control over my efforts in a way that would be sure to preclude all luck from playing its part in my efforts to be skillful in chess. So although I also have my differences with Octo's direction in this, I don't think it's fair to be too down on someone who may perhaps have spotted a gap in your own logical or rhetorical armour. It isn't as if he's one of those who is aggressive or passive-aggressive to those disagreeing with him and "deserves what he gets".