The place for random beats, brags and variance of the chessic sort.

And of course:

brag- I just topped 2200 ICC 5-min. baahahahaha

Feels good for a slower focker like me.

my favourite game i played, online 25 minute game it gets to the point where i have 4 seconds and my opponent has 57 seconds, same material, i end up winning on time (got 22 moves in during the 4 seconds)

Brag: broke 1900 lightning on FICS (haha, I know, that's not even that good...)

Seriously though, I can't for the life of me hit 1900 in blitz. I played some random 1900 and got creamed, so afterwards I looked at his finger notes and he was an FM! I played another guy who was like 1680 and according to his profile he was 2082 USCF. Goddamn deflated blitz ratings...

My friend who is a pro poker player but not a very good chess player insists there is no luck in chess. This tilts me so insanely.

well to me luck implies an element of chance, which there isnt in chess unless you count your opponent blundering as a piece of luck. obviously there is variance, but that is not the same as luck.

Well it's always possible to make the right move for the wrong reasons. Or taking it to an extreme, if you select all your moves randomly, there's an infinitessimal chance of you playing a perfect game.

Played in doshermanas last night and CHECKMATED a 2949 GM in 8 moves as black!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No an opponent bludnering is not luck. This is you outplaying your opponent via lack of blundering. Luck in chess is making the right move for the wrong reasons or more commonly the wrong move for right reasons. It's not random chance but luck doesn't have to be just about random chance. What is or what is truly random is debatable, in reality nothing is truly random.

For example if I am broke and am walking down the streets of new york and find 10 grand in a suitcase, everyone will say i got lucky. I was walking in NY simply to buy mlilk. If I move a peice for a shallow reason but it ends up leading to a series of devistating moves to my opponent, but i didnt see it myself. How is this not lucky? Its the same damn thing I do somethign for an unrelated reason and it leads to a fortunate set of circumstances.


The common example i give is..

Bill sees 5 moves ahead Jim can see 10 moves ahead

5 moves ahead appears to be positive for Bill taking a certain line
10 moves ahead appears to be positive for Jim taking that same line
12 moves ahead Jims position is devistated.

Jim loses this game 100% of the time to Bill, describing it as anything but luck is insane

there must be other stipulations to this example such as same skill level, cause i am sure a computer programmed to only look upto 5 moves in advance will be able to defeat upto (not sure)

wat, its just an example for a specific situation in a chess game that might occur, im sure you have lost and won games in this manner, i have

I don't think there is, but it depends on how you define luck. There is definitely no inherent luck factor, in the sense that if two perfect players are playing, luck will never be a factor in the result of a single game or series of games. In poker, backgammon and other games with luck involved, this simply isn't true.

Of course you could define luck as your opponent doing something stupid, but I don't believe that's luck, that's your opponent lacking in skill. But really the debate is pretty much dependent on your definition of luck.

Agreed, blunders are not luck. I am DEFINING luck to include situations where good moves are made for the wrong reasons and vice versa leading to a situation where one is outplayed but wins anyway. Yes there is no actual 'random chance' as most people define 'random chance' because either player could have played more perfect. You also CAN fold AA PF because you have currupted the code on FTP and know that the guy to your left is going to set. Nothing in life is truly random, randomness is just a hypothetical idea. We give up and call something 'random' when it is too impossible for any human to be able to predict the outcome. To call the situation I wrote of above not one of 'luck' becasue it is POSSIBLE to play 'perfectly' from either by and avoid it is silly to me.

I would define luck differently, as something like "rare events in variance-based games".

I think that it is obvious that there is variance in chess for all but perfect players, and those simply do not exist. When two people with exactly the same ELO (which I assume to represent their actual strength perfectly) play a match of say 5 games, you won't see 5 draws. A 2.5 - 2.5 or a close victory will happen most of the time. But very rarely, one of the players will win 4.5:0.5 or even 5:0 - that's what I call luck.

It is true that for a perfect player, chess and poker would be fundamentally different.
But for all practical purposes, chess, like poker, is a game with variance and luck involved. The difference is just that the variance is much larger in poker.

Well in poker there is pure luck. In chess all luck requires mistakes from one party. There is definitely some difference. I don't think there's an absolute correct answer because we all have differences in what luck really means.

You're calling it pure luck but really it just means CLOSER to pure luck. In reality it may be possible to know exactly what everyone at the table has and exactly what cards are going to come, but the idea is too advanced for human understanding. No outcomes are PURELY random.

To me, your level of chess is beyond my understanding and impossible to accomplish, and If I outplay an opponent and lose, yes I may have made mistakes, but he made the same mistakes and possibly more, what else can i call it but luck.

I would just say that "There is no luck in chess" but instead I'll quote Capablanca and say:

"The better player is always lucky."

[X] Philosophical debate in a BBV thread
[ ] Doinitrite

[x] the more I practise, the luckier I get

+++++

What I always see is bad players will often just more or less give up after getting beat down. They'll start moving very quickly doing nothing but shuffling pieces waiting for the inevitable. A good player will start fighting harder than ever where one mistake will be enough to turn the tables.

PyramidScheme, you must admit that there is a categorical difference between the luck in poker and the "luck" in chess. It is not a matter of degree.

Ill admit that the 'luck factor' in poker is a close to what we define as random chance as possible, and that the in chess its very far from it. But the fact of the matter is even in chess one can be outplayed move for move and still win. If we dont call this luck what do we call it?

Oooh i want to get to play Dos Hermanas qualifiers too, will get back to a working connetion this evening. How much did you score in total mc4chess?

PyramidScheme,

your Jim and Bill example does not have much to do with chess

If not luck, I would call it Circumstance.

To win a tournament one needn't necessarily be lucky, but if he can avoid circumstance then it's more likely he will win.

Circumstance wouldn't be about things that luck has control over. An example of a tournament player neglecting to go over his defense to d4 thoroughly before a tournament, and then all of his opponents play 1. e4. That would be favorable circumstance.

Another example would be facing a player in a tournament who plays very well in the event except for his game against you. Again that would be favorable circumstance. I wouldn't call this luck even though you may appear lucky because I don't think the word luck deserves to be anywhere near chess.

I always used to say there is no bad luck in chess, but there is good luck.