Gamblers bias

 This refers to the belief that one can predict correctly in a completely chance or random situation.  The bias is usually explaned in terms of an over-emphasis on the role of contextual factors.

 Is it wise to gamble an outcome?  I won't respond to any religious comment. When does risk become a gamble?

Is it wise to gamble an outcome?

Good question. I'll choose just to focus on implications for chess.

Indeed, most of the chess games we play are just that. We are wagering possible result (and perhaps our expenditure of time and money) on the success of our plans and move choices, each of which most often contain uncertainty.

So, is that wise?

For most of us on most occasions, the answer is likely irrelevant. But for Vishy Anand, making a key move in the final game of his WC defense, I'm guessing he'd like not to have his plan and move choices be considered a gamble. For him, the context should be the board position and his evaluation of it. However, even he might be subject to gambler's bias if he started thinking things like "my opponents doesn't like time pressure" or "I believe I am stronger at Armageddon, so I can draw this game and win that" or any number of other possibly biased evaluations which contain lots of context and higher uncertainty.

Interesting subject. I'm looking forward to the comments of others.

I think risk becomes a gamble the moment you put money on it. 

The gambler's fallacy is that one can predict future occurrences based on past occurrences.  Such as, if you flip a coin and it comes up heads 20 times in a row, then it must be a sure thing that the next flip is going to be tails.  But there's no guarantee, because your next flip is still a 50-50 chance between heads or tails.  The coin could be in the middle of a 40-heads run.  Eventually, the coin flips should even out to about 50-50 heads/tails, but there's no guarantee what the next flip will come up as.

I think one of the problems with the gambler's fallacy is that most gamblers often remember thier successes but conveniently forget their losses.  This is what gives them the idea they have a "system."