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
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.
When you pull up the record of the "interrupted by electrical blackout" game you will find 1-0 (or 0-1), as the measure of who was the superior player in that game. We agree that that result is due to factors other than the players' skills.
I consider who wins and who loses to be part of the game. In rare instances this is determined by random circumstances beyond the control of the players.
Bad burritos or poor bladder control, etc are conditions of the individual players, as are superior opening knowledge or "brain farts" causing uncharacteristic blunders. These don't really meet my criteria as luck in chess. Wins and losses not caused by the players themselves are another matter.
Burritos and brain farts. Now we are getting somewhere.
Much better than three old guys in chairs on the sidewalk offering their views on the drama (a scene from Do The Right Thing—and you gotta appreciate how Spike Lee used the sunshine on the bricks when filming that scene).
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
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.
When you pull up the record of the "interrupted by electrical blackout" game you will find 1-0 (or 0-1), as the measure of who was the superior player in that game. We agree that that result is due to factors other than the players' skills.
I consider who wins and who loses to be part of the game. In rare instances this is determined by random circumstances beyond the control of the players.
Bad burritos or poor bladder control, etc are conditions of the individual players, as are superior opening knowledge or "brain farts" causing uncharacteristic blunders. These don't really meet my criteria as luck in chess. Wins and losses not caused by the players themselves are another matter.