You Can't Win 'Em All

[The Coil]

My favorite games combine both skill and luck. That's why I'm not into chess - it's all skill.

There's luck in chess, both good and bad. "oops, I saw the next move of that combination but not the following move, lucky for me it left his Queen exposed, I didnt even see that coming." I won a minor tournament in 1997 because my opponent took an incredibly, stupidly long time to make a simple move and missed his time control, losing the game. He could have made virtually any move to get to the first time control and then crushed me in the next ten moves. So there's some luck there.

I agree with your overall position though-- CM is a great balance between skill and luck.

I would call what you're describing more as a failure of skill than "luck". I think DK was using luck in the sense of "random element outside the control of either player, even in theory", which is totally absent in chess. If your pawn had a one in 50 chance of killing his queen, that'd involve luck (and might make chess a whole lot more interesting, now that I think about it...).

It is interesting if you look at people's won/loss records in CM (this is what I do in my spare time...) - there doesn't seem to be a lot of consistency in who beats who. Player A may have a great record against player B, who has a great record against player C, who generally beats player A. That kind of thing. I wonder how much playing style figures in to the luck/skill mix as well. Some people seem to be great strategic players and are good in big games, some seem to be great tactical players and are better in small games, an so on...