Is there such thing as "luck" in chess?

Some nice finds from the great chess historian Ed Winter, quoting notable player's takes on both sides: https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/luck.html

Note that while some here have imagined that people who think there is luck in any human endeavor are suffering from a superiority complex, great players and even world champions are on the record partly attributing some of their successes to good luck, and not in just a sporting-like, bashful way. For example, Anderssen in essence saying "yeah, obviously I needed to be good, but I also got a fair bit of luck to win the tournament". 

One of my favorite excerpts: "most of us dislike acknowledging the influence of chance and luck in things. The chess board is certainly not an area of action wholly exempt from such influence. Some find the fact rather depressing mentally, and will consequently endeavor to disprove it. Perhaps it is natural that the mind prefers to acknowledge more readily the factor of skill in the game"

Of course, all that has been brought up before w.r.t. the number of trials needed to determine relative competency, ascribing meaning to what led to something only through the conclusion, etc. were also brought up in the link.

Your post is an oasis of rationality in a desert of.......

     You may be able to increase your chances, but if you cannot increase tit to 100% there is still a chance of some sort of bad luck spoiling a success your skill should earned you. At the other end of the scale, you may have almost no chance of achieving something. Having only a 5% chance of succeeding might be improved to 10% but it will still be lucky if you do it. Nobody can swim the English Channel carrying 100 kg of iron. Cutting that in half would make it more possible, but I'd be willing to bet the farm against it.

     And the very fact that it's humanly impossible to increase the % of skill to 100% means that there is always some small sliver where chance can enter in and luck determines the outcome. You take your best chance,, usually succeed, but sometimes the breaks go against you . Bad luck.

The text of my post #3006: "...great players and even world champions are on the record partly attributing some of their successes to good luck, and not in just a sporting-like, bashful way."

The text of coolout's post #3012: "...Or was he [LeeEuler] saying they were being literal and not acting humble like they appeared to be? Who knows..."

Following in the great tradition of coolout's either inability or unwillingness to digest and argue against what people actually write. Other examples are shown in posts #706 #825 #837 and #897

As an aside, the idea that statistics "confuses everything" is exactly the position I'd expect from someone claiming there is no luck in sports, or from someone who has separately said  "there is elements of luck in many games such as poker"..."luck doesn't affect a skill based game"... and "Poker is a skill based game" (see post #1050).

Sorry, I am not the clearest writer.

The last paragraph ("Of course, all that has been brought up before w.r.t. the number of trials needed to determine relative competency, ascribing meaning to what led to something only through the conclusion, etc. were also brought up in the link") was meant to say something like "Points which have previously been brought up in this thread are also mentioned in the Winter compilation (which can be seen in the link provided)."

Correct. Any understanding of luck that fails to acknowledge bad luck as equally as good luck must be rejected.

For why I don't think it's humble sportsmanship, the full quote from the first official world champ in the link provided is: "Anderssen once said to me: 'To win a tournament, a competitor must in the first place play well, but he should also have a good amount of luck.' I quite agree with that, but it naturally follows that there must be also ill luck in tournaments, of which many instances could be cited, notably that of Winawer, who, after having tied for first and second prizes in Vienna, and just a few weeks before he came out chief victor in Nuremberg, did not win in London a single prize out of eight (to include the special one for the best score against the prize-holders). All this would tend to show that, at least, a single tournament, especially one consisting of one round only, cannot be regarded as a test.’"

As for you saying "some games have both elements of luck and skill", this is a contradiction to what you previously wrote in your post #1039, that "luck doesn't affect a skills based game" (I add links because if people delete their posts, the numbers change, and I add the image below because I have noticed that while I only sparingly edit my posts for grammatical errors and the like, others often make gratuitous edits to their posts).

In successive posts, you wrote "there is elements of luck in many games such as poker"..."luck doesn't affect a skill based game"... and "Poker is a skill based game". All three are stances are not logically possible unless you also claim the elements of luck in poker (which you identified as the dealt cards) do not affect the game.

Yeah, that was not my finest communication haha. I generally use "unlucky" in the colloquial sense, i.e. something like "variance/entropy that does not work out in your favor" rather than "the absence of randomness", but my actual position is that luck can be both positive and negative. 

"Ascribing meaning to what led to something only through the conclusion" was meant to harken back to older arguments in this forum in favor of luck in chess. These arguments said attributing success or failure (win/lose) exclusively to skill is an attribution error. See for example the first paragraph of my post #755

I am not saying that. Former WC Steinitz did. 

I used his quote in my post #3006  to show that many top players attribute some of their success to luck. So they are certainly not suffering from superiority complexes (using luck as an excuse for bad outcomes against lower rated players), as you have implied in the past. 

Read my second paragraph from the post I linked: "Note that while some here have imagined that people who think there is luck in any human endeavor are suffering from a superiority complex, great players and even world champions are on the record partly attributing some of their successes to good luck, and not in just a sporting-like, bashful way. For example, Anderssen in essence saying 'yeah, obviously I needed to be good, but I also got a fair bit of luck to win the tournament'."

Well that effectively deflected the whole thing I said about considering external factors. At what point one must consider replying to you to be a complete waste of effort and time? 

 Correct because chess is a game of skill not hope and luck.

As has been explained to you, adding "period" at the end of a statement does not make it true, and can only serve to detract from your argument. See posts #1111 and #765

But to your point, no, he really meant it. What else do you glean from the quote that was provided now three times?

"Anderssen once said to me: 'To win a tournament, a competitor must in the first place play well, but he should also have a good amount of luck.' I quite agree with that, but it naturally follows that there must be also ill luck in tournaments, of which many instances could be cited, notably that of Winawer, who, after having tied for first and second prizes in Vienna, and just a few weeks before he came out chief victor in Nuremberg, did not win in London a single prize out of eight (to include the special one for the best score against the prize-holders). All this would tend to show that, at least, a single tournament, especially one consisting of one round only, cannot be regarded as a test.’"-Steinitz

I once played a move not knowing the threat and the move actually defended the threat. That's what I consider lucky

I'm going to end this argument once and for all with one logical point.

As humans we cannot say whether luck exists or not because if destiny exists and nothing happens by accident then luck is not a thing. But if we have free will and destiny does not exist then luck is a thing. Some of us also have completely different opinions. We all have our own opinions and we should learn to respect them even if we don't agree with them. One day I believe we will know the answer to this neverending question. But instead of arguing, why not help each other develop a better understanding and think more deeply to about this great mystery.

I like what Lee said. But I think I like what you said even more. I'm going to steal that. Which makes two things I learned today. I also learned what lucre means. I'm going to get some mileage out of that one too. 

In chess I think that barely qualifies as luck because it's something you should have known. But loosely that is indeed good luck because it resulted in good fortune, which is good luck. In my opinion it's likely you played the move for a reason, and it happened to be good, so that's mostly skill, but still a small amount of luck. But if you played the move for no reason at all, and just randomly move any piece (and it happened to be that one) and the move defended the threat, THEN it would be luck. 

If you don't know that your opponent has a threat in the position and you make a move for another reason, the odds of this move defending the threat are the same as a move by a random number generator. Both are luck

Only disagreement and questioning our opinions will lead to development of our understanding, agreement will not

fine, but do you think I'm right on we cannot say If luck exists or not.