Luck in chess?

[Neill Cooper]

Part of tonight's 'Of the page: Luck' on radio 4 included a discussion of whether there was luck in chess (last couple of minutes at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b0 ... _Page_Luck). The contrast is made with sports where luck can be obvious e.g. net chord in tennis. I think there is luck in chess (e.g. my opponent does not see one of my threats).

[Michael Jones]

Of course there is, although as you say it's not as obvious as in some other sports - for instance, the role of the arbiter is much less than that of an umpire/referee in other sports, so an arbiter's decision is not going to affect the outcome in the same way that a goal wrongly disallowed or a batsman given out incorrectly will; any luck depends on your opponent rather than an official. To a certain extent one can create one's own luck (in fact I believe David LeMoir wrote a book on that very topic) - by making what may not necessarily be the best move in theory, but the one that gives your opponent the most chance of going wrong. Take this position as an example:



As White, I had blundered an exchange and should have been completely losing, but with the capture 28. fxg6 I had given Black the choice of two ways to recapture. After 28... hxg6 Black is still winning, but instead he tried 28... Qxg6, presumably with the idea of exchanging queens to make his route to victory easier. Unfortunately for him, instead of exchanging I played 29. Rg1 to pin the queen, and won a few moves later. Of course I was still lucky that he fell for the pin, but I had helped to create my own luck by setting up the threat.

[Keith Arkell]

I would say that if I completely overlooked my opponents move,a move which appears to be winning for him,but it turns out that because of a hidden subtlety the move in fact loses for him,then I have been lucky.

[Alex Holowczak]

How do you define "luck"?

Surely you setting a threat that your opponent falls into isn't luck, but your opponent's (lack of) skill? After all, you're setting the threat for a reason.

[Michael Jones]

How do you define "skill"? I doubt any of us plays to a consistent standard - a 150-graded player might play like a 180 when he's having a good day, or like a 120 when he isn't. If I beat a higher graded player because he happened to have a bad day, I would say I've been lucky, since I still get the grading points according to his actual grade rather than how well he was playing on that particular day; coversely, if I lose to a lower rated player who had a particularly good day, I would say I'd been unlucky. In the above example, my opponent was no mug, and on another day he might well have seen the pin coming, avoided it and gone on to crush me; it was my good luck that on that particular occasion he didn't.

[David Shepherd]

I think looking at one of Jack Rudd's games at the British this year you can see luck does happen

[Peter Rhodes]

If I have a bad day at work and arrive at my match exhausted, or I'm failing to sleep properly - that's my opponents good luck.

I can understand why the determinists believe that chess is about good moves and bad moves, and nothing else, but I think they fail to take into account how the outside world can affect the inner chess mind and it's ability to deal with outside pressures.

[Michael Jones]

Fischer said he "didn't believe in psychology, only in good moves", and yes, ultimately chess games are decided by good moves (or, more commonly at less exalted levels of the game, by bad moves) - but there are plenty of external factors which can affect how likely a player is to make a good (or bad) move.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

If my opponent wishes me luck when we shake hands immediately before a game I sometimes reply ' Thats very kind of you but I rely on skill not luck'' That usually rattles them!

Unless they win, of course...

[Andrew Camp]

If my opponent wishes me luck when we shake hands immediately before a game I sometimes reply ' Thats very kind of you but I rely on skill not luck'' That usually rattles them!

Unnecessarily rude, I'd say. I just say, 'Thank you.'

[Michael Jones]

If my opponent wishes me luck when we shake hands immediately before a game I sometimes reply ' Thats very kind of you but I rely on skill not luck'' That usually rattles them!

Unnecessarily rude, I'd say. I just say, 'Thank you.'

Agreed. Some things are a matter of convention, rather than taking the exact wording literally - one says 'good luck' at the start of a game because it's generally considered a polite thing to say, rather than because saying so will actually increase the amount of luck the opponent will benefit from during the game, just as you say 'good morning' because it's a standard way of greeting someone, not as an invitation to debate whether or not the morning is in fact a good one.

Besides which, given the number of times over the last couple of years that I've swindled draws or even wins from completely lost positions, no-one who knew me could possibly take me seriously if I said that.

[Joey Stewart]

If my opponent wishes me luck when we shake hands immediately before a game I sometimes reply ' Thats very kind of you but I rely on skill not luck'' That usually rattles them!

When I say "good luck" to a lower rated opponent I think of it more as a backhanded comment, what I really mean is that they will need luck to beat me cause there is no way they will win otherwise!
When I say it to somebody better then me, I think of it more as a gesture to myself as I am the one who is more likely to need the luck.

[Stewart Reuben]

As a professional poker player, naturally I have some interest in the word 'luck'.
Define it as 'happenstance beyond one's control'. Then, when I play poker and my opponent has just one winning card with one card to come, that is luck (of course I don't remember when the reverse happens!). Gambling is wagering on such happenstances. Thus poker is gambling. I did not use to agree with this definition, but I have come to the conclusion that this is what is generally thought. (The OED is not very helpful about the word gambling. I thought it was wagering against the odds, but this seems not to be the general opinion.)

I don't believe in luck in chess. Yes, it does happen that I play what both my opponent and I think is a good move but, when the game continues beyond our perception horizon, it turns out it wasn't good. But I still don't believe that is unlucky. It is a failure to see far enough ahead.
Anatoly Karpov disagrees with me. I distinctly remember him saying he was unlucky in 1986 in London. Although he speaks English very well, we may very likely have had a different perception of what the word means. The opportunity to discuss this intellectually at length was never there.

To suggest that you were unlucky because you were tired is preposterous. However, I did play George Kramer in the qualifying competition for the Manhattan Chess Club Championship. I drew and thus qualified (the final event was about as strong as the British). We looked at one line which I was puzzled he had not chosen. He showed me the conclusion to his analysis which would have won for me and I had not at all seen. I was indeed rather tired after work.
These matters are difficult to define!
Stewart Reuben

[Joey Stewart]

I would say my opponent had been unlucky if he had gained an advantage in the very late stages of the game, pushed it through to a winning position but then lost on time - sure some people might say he should have been quicker, but I always believe that the middlegame is the point where one should invest most time looking for an advantage, as it tends to be the most complex point where you have an opportunity to bamboozle them with clever play (or take advantage of unsound play on their behalf) so as long as you have something to show for it then the time was well spent.

Another unlucky incident might be their phone turning itself back on and defaulting them - something that can be very difficult to anticipate happening. There might be those who get on their high horse and blame the player with the phone for it but I always think that those types simply have further to fall when something of that nature happens to them.

Getting distracted by something outside of your control, causing you to blunder is another case of bad luck.

Having a winning position but then it somehow twisting itself against you in the endgame is one of the most irritating. There was a correspondence game I had about 5 years ago where I won a piece, smashed up his pawn structure and traded into an endgame. Simple enough win, or so you would have thought, but actually those horrible little weak pawns were able to slip past my king (and knight!!) and beat me. There was no way of possibly knowing that would have happened 20 moves earlier, even a grand master or computer would have probably been keen to take my side of the board when going into this ending - that is most definately a case of luck for my opponent, as he had no way of knowing that he would win that game when he lost the piece (it was, in fact, sacrificed to prevent me from mating him) and simply had to rely on the position falling into his lap.

[Joey Stewart]

Thought of another good one - your opponent has a completely crushing move (which his position has obviously been building towards) but takes fright at some unseen threat at the last minute, or sometimes tries to delay playing the move assuming it can still happen in the future.
That is a fairly good stroke of luck.