Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

It was actually a Naroditsky speedrun I linked in my complaint.

Yes, he is very polite.

But from his opponent's point of view, here is a 1600 rated player taking 30-60 seconds on every move and playing like a GM. Obviously a cheater right? So the guy cheats against Naroditsky and gets banned.

In the part of the video that I linked, Narodiitsky says "this guy is not an experienced cheater" which strengthens my case that the guy was only doing it in retaliation. His account was a few years old with (IIRC) a few thousand games.

This is just a garbage thing to do to your players.

My proposed solution is you give them a GM title and/or their actual rating and/or a pop up message that says you're playing a GM.

The whole point of cheating being wrong is that it lacks authenticity. Your opponent believes they're playing a person when they're not. For the same reason, philosophically, speedrunning is just as unethical. That was my argument.

I would be fine with changing the system to identify the speedrunners, but you know as well as I that this leads to the same problem in reverse, plus other added problems.  People will use and engine to try to beat the GM for bragging rights, they will chat incessantly, they will bring in friends to play with them. they will play ridiculous moves to gain notoriety, etc. 

It would add a lot time to the process to edit/skip the games that get messed up, and I am sure chess.com is not picking up that tab, so it would fall to the speedrunner or their editor. 

The "well, this guy got banned after he cheated only because he was thinking he was playing another cheater" doesn't fly.  Ban them anyway.  You use an engine, bye bye.  It makes no difference if you think your opponent is also cheating.

why would you troll on this when its not on topic?    First of all its about undermining the competitive matches of unsuspecting players.  It is immoral and encourages bad behavior.   Which is why its naive to think twitch streamers are the only ones affecting matches.   You have to account for everyone they inspire to act deplorably as well.   Using alt accounts in this community is fashionable.  Its the reason why online gaming in general will never be respected by society,  not just chess.com.      So if guys like Narodistky and Hikaru want a better future for online chess and e-sports.  They better wake up to this fact and realize they are part of the problem.

I mean its no surprise why someone like you would defend and minimize the effects speedrunners have on the community.  You are a guy who hasn't played  a game on the account you are posting on for over 8 years.      But guys like them should realize the truth and stop listening to their mods who are steering them wrong for selfish reasons.

And honestly... (maybe I'm being a jealous idiot?) their advice is... not that amazing. It's all basic stuff. In most cases I would be giving the exact same commentary and advice.

Of course when they play someone a little closer to my rating, maybe already at 1800, they will give better commentary... and sure, if you're a GM, you've earned the right to some EZ mode commentary more than I have, and some people find it educational, so good for them.

It's just kind of amazing to me sometimes... the realization that my analysis is often exactly the same... don't get me wrong, I literally can't imagine how good a GM is, because they're too far beyond me, but when it comes to making basic observations

I don't really care what "people" mean by luck.  In the context of chess, I care what game designers mean by luck.  I did not say the universe is deterministic, that's a straw man on your part. 

There are random occurrences in the universe, but not in a game of chess once color selection is done.  A chess game is a logical construct that can exist inside our universe, or outside it.  No laws of physics required.  

case in point.  and well said.  It encourages bad behavior in all forms.

IMO it would be more honorable to reward your subscribers with games.  Like many other twitch streamers do.   Woiuld be much more educaitonal as well.   GM Minh Lee once,  told me look i'm a put my name in the caption.    And when he did that 10 people in a row instantly kept abandoning the game.    The truth is even if they know its a GM they simply don't want to play with them.   Its not sporting,  its not competitive.   they know they will be smashed.    I say only play the people that are willing to play with them.  period.

Chess Dojo,  Gm Finegold,  many other streamers do it right.   And what is crazy is that Daniel and HIkaru many times want to compete in tournaments.  Playing lower skilled players is not the proper way to train.  Even coaching lower skilled players can hurt your performance.  Its why people are always doubting Hikaru even though the guy is an exceptiong. lol.   When Hikaru is titling his videos,  speedrunning candidates prep,   He is implying to people who dont' know any better that it is a good way to train.   Its crazy.

What kind of dweeb would not play a GM given the chance? 

When a college professor subs in for a kindergarten teacher, they don't teach the 5 year olds using their normal curriculum.  If you are rated 1000, it doesn't really matter if your coach is 1500 or 2500, what matters is that they know how to communicate the concepts to you in a way that you can absorb, and that they can encourage and motivate you.

Naroditsky is popular because he can tell you his thought processes in a way that is accessible to a very wide range of players, and because he tells you more of his reasoning than just the primary reason he chose a move.

1. I think perhaps you are trying to shift the discussion to whether chess is a game of chance. Clearly, chess is not a game of chance; there are no dice rolls, nothing you are dealt etc. No-one would dispute this.

But in the context of the OP (which is the only one which matters) the question is simply whether there is luck in chess. A broad question, and luck is a broad concept. And the answer is "yes" because luck includes things like outcomes that were not calculated being better or worse.

...according to your interpretation of the "broad concept".

2. I never suggested that you said that the universe was Deterministic.
It was an illustration to show that the meaning of "luck" in general is more broad than your definition. If everyone understood luck to be the meaning you are alluding to, then, if we were being consistent, we would be unable to say a lottery winner was lucky. Because, we don't currently know if the universe is Deterministic and, if it is, your definition of luck entails there was no luck.

Not a valid reductio ad absurdum, more of an appeal to extremes that doesn't quite get there.  If we were being consistent, we'd be talking about the game of chess and the luck designed into and contained within an instance of the game.  No lottery winners or deterministic universes to be had.  But If the universe *is* deterministic all the way down to quantum fluctuations, that matters little for this topic.  Maybe you'd like to go for a holographic universe instead?  Or the old standby:  "you can't prove that anything exists outside your thoughts"...

Not because your definition mentions Determinism -- it doesn't -- but because your definition says that if something is in principle calculable then there is no luck involved, whether or not any entity actually did calculate that outcome. In a Deterministic universe the numbers to fall out a lottery machine are in principle calculable.

I got randomly paired with a 2900 GM a few weeks back, but aborted the game because I didn't want to lose rating points. If cc told me I was playing a speedrunning GM before a rated game, I would certainly abort and play someone else.

Obviously I know to develop pieces and castle... so why would I be excited to be thinking that before I hear a GM say it?

I could try to explain, but probably the more I talk the more it'd sound arrogant and silly...

... maybe I can say this. I think maybe... maybe when I was a beginner, there weren't many instructional resources that brought it down to my level. I can still watch some of those "beginner" videos and learn stuff. A GM showing his game, and actually analyzing a move he was proud to find... was that appropriate for beginners? lol, no. But some of them did stuff like that. Or maybe I was watching the wrong things.

But now I see a video, and it's still a GM, and it's still the setup "look at this amazing move" but then the punchline is something I saw 3 moves ago. It's just such a huge difference.

Lol.  You just need to join the speedrun post-2000 in your case, I guess.

That's your answer??? The entire gaming industry, as well as the people who have studied the matter are fraudulent and just doing it for job security??

Oh no, combining the luck and sport topics!

By the way, I wonder if you guys have an opinion on whether chess is a draw with best play.

It is.