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Is Chess a Game of Luck?

Truth is, *life* itself is based on luck. Many people succeed just coz they're lucky, others fail for the same reason. We like to not put too much stock in luck, but there's a large part it plays in our lives
Imagine how absurd it would be to say, "I played a game of chess against myself and I got lucky."

Luck is a type of experience. "Good luck" is a favorable surprise. "Bad luck" is an unfavorable surprise.

There's plenty of luck in chess.
@Robaloooo said in #42:
> Luck is a type of experience. "Good luck" is a favorable surprise. "Bad luck" is an unfavorable surprise.
>
> There's plenty of luck in chess.

Jeez, guys, quit playing chess, you don't like it. Play poker instead.
A while back I got not one but three notifications that I played against someone violating the TOS. Then nothing. And it was noted by other players in the forum. Now that is what I call... luck.
@kolmogorov64 said in #44:
> A while back I got not one but three notifications that I played against someone violating the TOS. Then nothing. And it was noted by other players in the forum. Now that is what I call... luck.

This morning I stepped on a "present" from some dog right outside my door. How unlucky. So what? What are we talking about? C'mon...
#45
There is a kind of rhetoric on lichess that is precisely missing because it gets censored. **That** is what I'm talking about.
replying to markovian eboking post:

long term determinism does not follow from microspic (local) determism of the ruleset, half-move element.

Even determinics ruleset transitions can be modeled by some probability distribution with all uncertainty put to zero and all the mass of the distribution put on what one calls deterministic transition.

calling a within some breadth of calcuation hozizon still deterministic player, non deterministic is not very nuanced. Refusing the duality of chess, it has a mechanical rule set with finite rules that we can all control as verbalizable knowledge, and keep applying given a position to consider possible futures made of many such half-move deterministic step, and yet have less deterministic confidence at legal terminal outcome. It does have to resort to odds. But that is just a human rational player. niether the complete tree superhuman knower of some game theory models.. neither the poker player where the ruleset is about finite set of random transitions (card deck and picking rules.. assuming blind shuffling i guess).

some posts have already suggest to not confused beyond horizon uncertainty from within luck. But yes, we needed some agreable presentation of the factors clearly invovled in everybody's chess experience at any level.

And yes there are many aspect of human within and beyond horizon that can make legal outcome certainty fall from next move decision containing uncertainty... (yes i also think, that given our horizon, we need to use within horizon heuristic forecasting, be it evollved ones like material count, to assess what we could calculate, ot compensate for that obvious beyond horizon uncertainty (by calculation, repeating for emphasis). The jusntness of however one assessed a far calculated within horizon would depend on chess knowledge carried consciously or digested most accurately through experience (or both), and that is a life long or long life stretch development endeavor....

PS: game theory determinism may not have room for such nuance of scope of determinism, as long as it is restricted to complete tree knowledge as definition of rational player (also hard to find extensive based definitions of strategy sets, or i don't get those, when i read them, if I read them).
Both life and chess is much about luck management. You get luck, but you have to see it and handle it.
In chess the opponent might choose an opening where you are well trained. Your luck. The opponents in almost every game makes an unpresice move. Your luck, but you have to see it and punish it. Seeing inaccuracies and punishing them, that is luck management. To win in chess it might be a good idea to avoid giving away luck.

I do give away a lot luck, because I take chanses and tries moves that looks fun instead of moves that looks safe. And I do bad moves (gives luck away) due to lack of skill, motivation, time and concentration.
Free will does not exist in universe
What humans call luck is just the future chain of events they can not guess before it happens so they invent the word luck as an emotional consequence each event
There was a farmer with a horse. One day, the horse ran away. The villagers said, "That's bad luck!"

The farmer said, "Maybe."

The next day, the horse came back with three more horses. The villagers said, "That's good luck!"

The farmer said, "Maybe."

The day after, the farmer's son fell off a new horse and broke his leg. The villagers said, "That's bad luck!"

The farmer said, "Maybe."

Then, the army came to take young men for war, but they didn't take the farmer's son because of his broken leg. The villagers said, "That's good luck!"

The farmer said, "Maybe."