I wouldn't describe chess as a lucky game, and I wouldn't compare it to poker, but I wouldn't say your performance at a tournament is completely under your control.
Anyway, it's not a new idea.
"A good player is always lucky" - Capablanca
"The player who plays best in a tournament never wins first. He finishes second behind the guy with the most luck." - Tartakower
I wouldn't describe chess as a lucky game, and I wouldn't compare it to poker, but I wouldn't say your performance at a tournament is completely under your control.
Anyway, it's not a new idea.
"A good player is always lucky" - Capablanca
"The player who plays best in a tournament never wins first. He finishes second behind the guy with the most luck." - Tartakower
Well, great chess players often have a great sense of humour, too
Chess can teach people to take responsibility for their actions, instead of blaming their luck, their opponent, their fate, or whatever. But this is too hard of a lesson for many people.
(not that people can't have fortunate/lucky or unfortunate/unlucky moments/circumstances, but they should learn when to blame themselves and when not to - and they usually don't like blaming themselves)
Yes, I'm sure they weren't being completely serious when they said this :)
I haven't looked it up, but I imagine Tartakower was mad after Nimzo won a tournament and was just being a dick lol.
Anyway, people's faults aside, like I said, chess itself has no luck. And even when people play I wouldn't call it a lucky game. But there is a small element of chance because we're imperfect.
The rules describe a game with no luck.
Imperfect players introduce at least a small element of chance.
Yes, humans are imperfect, they make mistakes. For example, one can make mistakes in simple mathematics if he makes the calculations by himself. But you can't say there's luck in mathematics... can you?
"Why didn't you score well in that math test?" "Oh, i was unlucky... We got questions from the part of the book i hadn't studied, and made some mistakes in the questions i had studied, too" "Ah, don't worry son, next time your luck will turn around" :D lol
Math is different from chess - it is not a game. When someone makes mistake in math it doesn't affect a body of math knowledge in any way. Even when great mathematicians make mistakes it belongs to math history but not to math theory. But take any chess book - it contains games (or game fragments) and those contain mistakes!
Mistakes are inherent part of chess because as leiph18 said - it is played by imperfect players. When you play a game you hope your opponent will make a mistake - otherwise you have no chance to beat him. It's true on every level - Carlsen is playing drawish endgame with same hope - that his opponent will crack under pressure and make a mistake.
If a perfect chess game without mistakes could be played it might be always a draw - but we don't know it yet.
In many games a grandmaster will not be able to see where a move will take the game in comparison to another move and like a stab in the dark will make a decision based on what they "feel" is the best move. They may get lucky and choose the only correct move or simply by sheer luck move the e pawn instead of the f pawn and blow the game. Sometimes even with the wrong move their opponent will by sheer luck (not being able to see beyond a certain horizon) make the right move to take advantage of that.
In that sense the factor of "luck" is involved in the same way that dice are involved though not to as a great of an extent. I would say the definition of "luck" in those parameters plays a part. Houdini shows how lucky even grandmasters are at times.
The rules describe a game with no luck.
Imperfect players introduce at least a small element of chance.
Yes, humans are imperfect, they make mistakes. For example, one can make mistakes in simple mathematics if he makes the calculations by himself. But you can't say there's luck in mathematics... can you?
"Why didn't you score well in that math test?" "Oh, i was unlucky... We got questions from the part of the book i hadn't studied, and made some mistakes in the questions i had studied, too" "Ah, don't worry son, next time your luck will turn around" :D lol
Still missing the point about what luck is. Luck simply means that there are factors beyond our control. In chess this is always the case no matter how strong the player.
The rules describe a game with no luck.
Imperfect players introduce at least a small element of chance.
Yes, humans are imperfect, they make mistakes. For example, one can make mistakes in simple mathematics if he makes the calculations by himself. But you can't say there's luck in mathematics... can you?
"Why didn't you score well in that math test?" "Oh, i was unlucky... We got questions from the part of the book i hadn't studied, and made some mistakes in the questions i had studied, too" "Ah, don't worry son, next time your luck will turn around" :D lol
Still missing the point about what luck is. Luck simply means that there are factors beyond our control. In chess this is always the case no matter how strong the player.
If i'm missing the point, you guys don't even know where the point is, rofl
Thomas is right. I agree with everything he has written so far. Some people seem to separate probability from luck as if they were mutually exclusive. Yet others seem to not understand that if something does not work on 50/50 but something more greater or less then 50% between the two players that it is still probability there, and if there is probability there is luck.
I recommend checking mathematical definition of probability. Probability in math is same as luck or chance.
Fischer beat Larsen 6-0. Yes Fischer is clearly better but that kind of sweep is luck on his part since Larsen should have gotten some draws in.
luck is an illusion
Believing in luck in chess will, at some, will handicap your chess development. As long as one believes in chance at chess, they will ultimately rely on that instead of superior skill.
That is really rubbish.
Believe what is true, not try to do some stupid psychological assessment on yourself and make up a belief to suit it.
The necessity of luck is inversely proportionate to a player's skill. Suppose every single chess position was already computed, such that a move tree existed where you could always play a response most likely to secure a win, I suppose if two opponents were matched up that both had that information and were perfect about using it and there were no time controls, then the luck would be down to things like not having a major health issue during the match. It would mostly be down to who played white, and whether a win was ever guaranteed or only a draw.
The rules describe a game with no luck.
Imperfect players introduce at least a small element of chance.
Yes, humans are imperfect, they make mistakes. For example, one can make mistakes in simple mathematics if he makes the calculations by himself. But you can't say there's luck in mathematics... can you?
"Why didn't you score well in that math test?" "Oh, i was unlucky... We got questions from the part of the book i hadn't studied, and made some mistakes in the questions i had studied, too" "Ah, don't worry son, next time your luck will turn around" :D lol
Still missing the point about what luck is. Luck simply means that there are factors beyond our control. In chess this is always the case no matter how strong the player.
If i'm missing the point, you guys don't even know where the point is, rofl
If anyone has laughable analysis it's you. You're confusing the idea of the game producing luck inherently and luck appearing in another way.
The rules describe a game with no luck.
Imperfect players introduce at least a small element of chance.
Yes, humans are imperfect, they make mistakes. For example, one can make mistakes in simple mathematics if he makes the calculations by himself. But you can't say there's luck in mathematics... can you?
"Why didn't you score well in that math test?" "Oh, i was unlucky... We got questions from the part of the book i hadn't studied, and made some mistakes in the questions i had studied, too" "Ah, don't worry son, next time your luck will turn around" :D lol
Still missing the point about what luck is. Luck simply means that there are factors beyond our control. In chess this is always the case no matter how strong the player.
If i'm missing the point, you guys don't even know where the point is, rofl
If anyone has laughable analysis it's you. You're confusing the idea of the game producing luck inherently and luck appearing in another way.
I'm not confusing anything, and i'm the one who's laughing 
rofl
What does anyone care if you're laughing? We're talking about luck in chess. You're really very immature and childish.
If i'm missing the point, you guys don't even know where the point is, rofl
Ok, I'll try to explain for you one more time though I'm starting to doubt your capcity to grasp this concept.
Firstly - luck and chance are illusory insofar as they are simply used to describe a situation where we are ignorant of causes, that does not mean that an event was not determined in advance but rather that we had no way of predicting this event. When such an event works in our favour we call it luck.
Second - in game theory we distinguish between games of perfect information and games where information about certain elements is concealed from the players. In the second type of game we refer to these concealed elements as being determined by chance or luck.
Chess is a game of perfect information so THEORETICALLY there is no element of chance - HOWEVER - in practice most of the information about future continuations IS concealed from the players (and it is impossible that this is not the case no matter how skilled the players) which introduces a small element of something we can describe as luck.
Exactly where lack of skill and becomes luck is arguable - I would suggest that any variation that is practically impossible to calculate with modern or projected technology is determined by "chance" for all practical purposes.
If you still don't understand my point I will resign myself to that fact and leave the thread :P
What does anyone care if you're laughing? We're talking about luck in chess. You're really very immature and childish.
ROFLMAO, you said my analysis is laughable but then when i say that i'm the one laughing i'm being chidish and immature? Oooookay Just goes to show your level of compehension, ROFLMAO
If i'm missing the point, you guys don't even know where the point is, rofl
Ok, I'll try to explain for you one more time though I'm starting to doubt your capcity to grasp this concept.
Firstly - luck and chance are illusory insofar as they are simply used to describe a situation where we are ignorant of causes, that does not mean that an event was not determined in advance but rather that we had no way of predicting this event. When such an event works in our favour we call it luck.
Second - in game theory we distinguish between games of perfect information and games where information about certain elements is concealed from the players. In the second type of game we refer to these concealed elements as being determined by chance or luck.
Chess is a game of perfect information so THEORETICALLY there is no element of chance - HOWEVER - in practice most of the information about future continuations IS concealed from the players (and it is impossible that this is not the case no matter how skilled the players) which introduces a small element of something we can describe as luck.
Exactly where lack of skill and becomes luck is arguable - I would suggest that any variation that is practically impossible to calculate with modern or projected technology is determined by "chance" for all practical purposes.
If you still don't understand my point I will resign myself to that fact and leave the thread :P
Yes, leave the thread, nao!
The rules describe a game with no luck.
Imperfect players introduce at least a small element of chance.
Yes, humans are imperfect, they make mistakes. For example, one can make mistakes in simple mathematics if he makes the calculations by himself. But you can't say there's luck in mathematics... can you?
"Why didn't you score well in that math test?" "Oh, i was unlucky... We got questions from the part of the book i hadn't studied, and made some mistakes in the questions i had studied, too" "Ah, don't worry son, next time your luck will turn around" :D lol
Im separating the two.
So I would say a human's performance in math can be fortunate or unfortunate.
Performance can even be very arbitrary. For example on a math test, it's not whether or not you can solve a problem, it's whether you can solve it in that time frame.