Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

     I have read your posts. They prove nothing, are full of grammatical errors and non-sequitors that sometimes make your intentions unclear, and ramble over the same unsubstantiated boastings about how you are correct about everything, mistaken attributions, putting things they never said into other posters'.mouths, beating dead horses endlessly and denigrating anyone who disagrees with you. Often they good for a chuckle.

I didn't want to copy your post before this one, because it was too long. But you said that sometimes it's a matter of chance if a skilled player selects a certain move over another one. 

I know this has happened to me MANY times. I know enough not to play an intentionally bad move (or at least one I think is bad) and I may have 3 or 4 absolutely identical moves to choose from. I literally have no idea, of any kind, which one is best. I don't have a thought or plan or idea or suspicion of which move could lead to a better position. I don't even choose one based on if my favorite piece is involved, or which side of the board it is. Nothing. 

In those cases I don't know what else to call it other than chance, or luck. 

A fitting epitaph for your arguments here.

Without going into detail, all I can say is that you are wrong in your insinuation that the creator of either system does not recognize the role luck plays within chess. It is the mainstream consensus opinion of statisticians that luck is a factor in anything humans do. So much so that I'd say it's borderline axiomatic. 

For instance, I reached out to a respected colleague (who wished to remain anonymous in name and title) about the topic of luck vs. skill who referred the paper "Ludometrics: Luck, and How to Measure It". You can find it on the ArXiv here https://arxiv.org/pdf/1811.00673.pdf. Even the technical parts are not so bad so it is pretty approachable.

Some excerpts: 

"Some of this same intractability can be found in Chess’s unfathomable game tree,
which suggests that Chess has at least some luck. This claim can be a sticking point
for those who relish the idea of a game of 'pure skill.' However, this categorization
was hardly defensible in the first place; a random number generator could beat Magnus
Carlsen once every few heat-deaths of the universe, and the reason is unlikely due to the
machine suddenly acquiring a high level of skill, and then immediately relinquishing it."

"RS [return to skill] and luck in a game depend on the population. This is unavoidable. If the population of players is limited to those with very similar skill, the RS will be found to be low
and the luck will be found to be high [Mauboussin (2012) refers to this phenomenon as the 'paradox of skill']. Thus, to compare the amount of luck inherent
to different games, we will need to assume that the reference populations have similar
distributions of expertise"

"Thus we conclude that in this population of professional Go players, there is somewhat
more variation in effective skill amongst the players. If we are willing to assume that
these populations represent similar swaths of the highest level of play for each game, we
can claim that at the highest levels, Chess has more luck than Go."

I haven't denied saying that.  Not once.  That's you and your imagination.

You have not displayed the capacity to analyze much of anything.  What you did was rationalize a reason for changing your tune.  Everyone here can see that somebody has an inferiority complex that is driving their "me against the world" agenda...but it's not me.

Oh. I was just going by what the dictionary said. I personally use luck where someone else might use chance or fortune, they seem pretty interchangeable to me. But the dictionary says luck is "favoring chance". 

You should call them and tell them they have it all wrong. You could tell them they have the definition of sport wrong too while you're at it. 

I'm confused. I think luck and chance and good fortune are all basically the same. There are probably other words that also mean about the same thing. It's just some random thing that happens for no apparent reason. Like when I make a chess move that has no explanation. 

So I really don't understand why you think I would want there to be luck in chess in support of chess not being a sport. I would want there to be luck in chess if I thought chess IS a sport. Because all sports have an element of luck (or chance or favor or fortune or whateever you want to call it) to them. No exceptions. 

But you are saying there is no luck in chess. Which is a very, very strong argument that chess isn't a sport. 

Damn I wanna join in this thread but I kinda don’t feel like reading 70 pages because undoubtedly some people have the same opinion as me 😪

huh

Let's keep on the topic and stay away from personal attacks. Adults we are?

Thanks 

     I sympathize with your dilemma. I've been in that situation too. I go with the move that would further the plan I have been working on should it succeed. Of course many people would point out that just shows our lack of skill. Perhaps the luck comes in when we weren't born with the "feel" for the game of Morphy or Capablanca.

Not what I said, as usual.

Back on topic it is...

     Just saying that sometimes your posts--obviously dashed off without being thought out--wind up garbled and don't really express what you later say you meant. Note that there is no mention of your playing ability here, or in any of my comments. I pooh-poohed your claim to know what young people at OTB classical tournaments are like as I have met them and can tell you don't know squat about them. 

     As for my playing, I simply don't care for online speed chess. When I play speed chess it's with friends, in person, in a convivial atmosphere. I do play long games three nights/week, which is probably more time than I should devote to it. 

     My purpose for having chess.com membership is access to the openings database and computer analysis of my games. I looked at the forums during the pandemic when I had excess time on my hands and found some to be interesting.

i played bughouse with a few 1500 and i apparently destroyed them ( im 1300)

https://www.chess.com/game/live/46197591355

https://www.chess.com/game/live/46213152929

https://www.chess.com/game/live/46194068675

also,  i have even matches with 1400's which is strange.

i have made a few theories on why this is

maybe the 1500's were having a bad day

maybe i was having a good day

maybe i have powers over 1500's

and the most likely : when i play 1400's and below, i feel confident of winning. 1500's and above im nervous and careful, and i play better like this.

or its luck of course 

I doubt it's luck since this has happend to me once before (beating 1500's a lot).

     In America phrases such as "I lucked out", or "Just lucked out I guess", using "luck".as a verb, is common usage. 

Never thought of it this way. I’m pretty sure lucky only means positive luck, since saying “I’m so lucky my house burned down” doesn’t make much sense

In chess like in anything there are things that occurr more or less randomly, because the affects of your moves are impossible to calculate till the end. This means luck is involved. The better you play the more youre in control, how ever luck/randomness cant be eliminated. What you consider being lucky is subjective. So the answer to your to your question is self evident.

OK. It's Merriam Webster. They are supposed to be pretty good. They have both the noun and verb. The "favoring chance" is under the noun definition. 

I just looked it up under the Cambridge dictionary. It says pretty much the same thing. A force that causes things to happen by chance. 

I'll try dictionary.com next. 

Wheels...