<possible hijack>
Chess is not a game of chance, but this is not quite the same thing as saying there is no luck element.
It is not possible to calculate most lines out to a conclusion. So most moves will have unforeseen negative and/or positive consequences. For some definitions of luck that means luck is a factor in a chess game.
If someone’s arguing whether poker is gambling, the OP should first get clear with that person what definition of “gambling” is being used, and try to get to a point where they at least agree on a definition before arguing further. Several posts in this thread have mentioned “it depends on the definition”.
Maybe the OP, or the person the OP is trying to convince, think of gambling in terms of the laws about it. Commonly, laws against gambling are written to prohibit any wagering on any game of pure chance but allow wagering on games that have some element of chance as long as there is also some element of skill. When OP is trying to convince other people whether poker is gambling, the first step would be to get to an agreement as to whether poker is gambling under this kind of definition.
Chess is too a game of chance. You need to be absurdly lucky for your opponent not to notice you removed one of his knights from the board while they weren’t looking.
More seriously
[QUOTE=Mijin]
It is not possible to calculate most lines out to a conclusion. So most moves will have unforeseen negative and/or positive consequences. For some definitions of luck that means luck is a factor in a chess game.
[/QUOTE]
That falls under the comparative skills of the players. If I make a mistake, or misjudged your strategy/misread your moves did you just get lucky ? By some definitions of luck, sure.
But if we postulate that “a game of chance” means a game that includes elements that are randomly determined, then chess is not a game of chance.
That isn’t what I meant.
I mean, for example, say I have a choice of two moves. Both choices are simply based on principles (e.g. central expansion), because as far as I can calculate, I don’t win any material and there are no other significant consequences either way.
As we play out a particular line, and we both calculate this line down further, I see that my choice of move was critically important and I’ve either saved, or destroyed my position by choosing option A.
This is the kind of thing that happens all the time, and is one of the reasons that multiple games between two players can have very different outcomes.
Indeed; and I did say that chess is not “a game of chance” and also that whether luck is a factor in chess depends on what definition of luck we are going with.
Personally I prefer definitions of luck that do not imply randomness because (and now getting a little philosophical…) that definition leads some to conclude that in a deterministic universe there can be no luck. I disagree with that, because I think luck is something inherently observer-dependent, and I can classify events as lucky / unlucky even though from a gods-eye-view they were all inevitable.
Pretty much every competition format for Bridge. The cards dealt for one set of partners are preserved, and then replayed by the opposing teams partners. As such, both sides get precisely the same draw of cards, so it must come down to skill.
Can you give some examples of these regularly occurring chess positions?
As an experienced player, I don’t recognise this situation.
I don’t think Superhal has much experience of Duplicate Bridge (nor of chess), but in the interests of fairness, you do need time for the small amount of luck in bridge to balance out.
I refer (for example) to slams which only require one of two finesses to make (i.e. 75% to suceed), but where both finesses are wrong, the pair that bid the slam lose that hand against the wimps who stopped in game.
I took a class in college that was taught by a former professional futures trader, and we discussed the differences/similarities between casino-type gambling and trading in the financial markets. There is an element of risk and uncertainty involved with both, however, this instructor believed there was an important distinction when it came to where the risk came from. He argued that in the case of the futures market risk already exists. When a speculator takes a position he is taking on the price risk that a farmer, grain elevator, oil producer, etc. no longer wants to hold. The speculator’s economic function is to accurately price and trade risk, otherwise he goes out of business.
OTOH, gambling at a casino essentially creates risk out of nowhere. There is not a natural counterparty that needs liquidity or a hedge in the form of a spin on the roulette wheel.
I don’t think that is a universally accepted definition of gambling vs. business, but I find it useful. Almost every business has inputs that expose it to risk and uncertainty. A grocery store owner buys his tomatoes from farmers and sells them at a mark up. There is risk and uncertainty involved in that; the price of tomatoes could drop, they could rot, etc. Few people would say grocers are professional gamblers.
I would argue that poker is gambling, even if it is a 100% skill game, because it creates risk out of thin air.
Putting aside the argument about whether chess is pure skill or not, it’s pretty clear to me that if the World Chess Championships are happening next week, it’s gambling for me to bet large sums on the outcome of the match, even if the players themselves are engaging in a contest with zero luck.
Either you’ve misread what I’ve said or you’re being obtuse because what I’m saying is common in chess, and indeed uncontroversial.
I’m not going to link a game and a move because if I do that you’ll obviously say “Ah, but that was a blunder by black!” or whatever, and I would agree with you. I’m not saying that there are magical moves of fate, I’m just talking about known and unknown information.
The only controversial part is using the word “luck” here, as some feel uncomfortable with this word being associated with this game. So instead, let’s talk about data mining. Essentially both players are traversing a search space. Some people’s algorithms for traversing the search space are better than others. For example, one player may know endgames better than the other and be able to see that a line leads to a winning endgame for white, while the other cannot.
Or simply, one player may be able to look further than the other.
These are the kinds of abilities that we call skill in chess. However, it’s also true that in the majority of positions no-one can calculate a line out to mate, or in many cases even a win of material or obviously better position. And all the while, there is time pressure.
What do you do when you’ve calculated several lines, none of them particularly stands out as better than the others, and meanwhile the clock is ticking?
Poker player here. Yes, it’s gambling; it’s not even a close question. Even if you make your hand you might still lose; your third ace may complete your opponent’s flush draw, or whatever. What it isn’t is a game of pure chance like roulette.
Are they really written that way? In my state, gambling is defined as risking something of value on a game of chance or a future contingent event not under your control or influence ( betting on a baseball game etc) . “Game of chance” specifically includes games where skill is also a factor. But it generally only becomes *illegal *gambling when someone profits other than as a player. So a poker game for money is gambling - but it’s perfectly legal if if only the players profit. It becomes illegal if the host rakes the pot or charges a set fee to play, because that person is profiting other than as a player.
Moving from IMHO to Game Room.
To expand on Mijin’s point: Suppose that a total newb at chess, who knows nothing more than how the pieces move, enters a chess tournament. One would expect such a player to get slaughtered, right? But suppose that he’s smuggled in a bluetooth earpiece and Google glasses, and he’s got a coalition of Deep Blue, Fritz, Gary Kasparov, and Bobby Fischer watching his games, analyzing them, and secretly suggesting moves to him. He knows he’s outclassed, and always takes their suggestions. Now, we expect that this guy is probably going to win the tournament. But now suppose that his fancy electronics malfunction, and he has to guess what the grandmasters would have told him to do: This is certainly a matter of luck. And yet, there is still a chance that he will guess correctly, and purely by luck, make a very good move. There’s even a chance, however small, that he will make such good guesses for multiple moves in a row, or even for the whole game.
How is that different than if the grandmasters were never there? Anyone can make lucky guesses about which move to make but the chance of them succeeding in a complex game like chess is vanishingly small. I’m not sure the point of the story, can you elaborate?
I think there are two related ways that chess “has luck” in it.
One is that if you just blindly make moves, you might still beat the best grandmasters purely by luck. Granted, that would take ludicrously astronomical amounts of luck, but the chance is still there. (I’m not sure if it’s possible to think of a competition that could not be won that way… I mean, I could beat Usain Bolt in the 100 meter dash… if he tripped and fell over, or false started repeatedly, or was attacked by a flock of angry birds halfway along.)
A more subtle way involves decision trees… so suppose you can look 6 moves deep and analyze every one of the moves currently available to you and their implications on the board after 6 moves. So you look 6 moves deep for each of the available moves, and see that c3-d4 is the move that makes the board the most favorable to you after 6 moves. Another player can look 8 moves deep, and he sees b5xa6 is actually slightly better. So that guy is smarter and better, and looks deeper, and thus will have better results than you, right?
Well, maybe not. Because it might turn out that if you look 10 moves deep, b5xa6 actually ends up worse again due to very subtle reasons. Neither player was smart enough to see those actual subtle reasons. The second player is smarter and generally better and sees deeper. But, purely by chance, in this one particular board configuration, it turns out that the worse player has picked a better play than the better player.
That’s something that could certainly arguably be described as “luck”.
I don’t think it’s even RELEVANT whether there is an “element of chance” or not. All there needs to be for it to be Gambling is a wager and an element of UNCERTAINTY.
If two guys look up at the night sky and one of them says “I bet you $5 that comet will be brighter tomorrow”, and the other guy says “You’re on!” then it’s gambling, regardless of the fact that there is no CHANCE involved in the outcome, only uncertainty (because neither person, presumbly, knows for sure. If one of them does, then it’s not gambling. At least, not for that person.)
Betting on Arm Wrestling is gambling too. Once again, not really an element of ‘chance’ here, just uncertainty.
So the odds and how much skill is involved in poker is irrelevant. It’s gambling, because you never know for sure how it will turn out, and there is money involved.
In the short term, poker is definitely gambling. In the long term, it’s not gambling if and only if you’re doing it well (note that table selection and bankroll management are big parts of “doing it well”).
But take heed, Superhal: the number of people who are actually gambling when they play poker is much larger than the number who *think *they’re gambling.
That’s an interesting way to think about it, but it seems like a pretty arbitrary definition. It doesn’t really get to the heart of what I mean to capture with the word “gambling,” in any event.
So then the best team in the world wins the large majority of the tournaments they enter? I’m guessing not. There’s still short-term luck involved, if only because different hands will or will not play to the strengths and tendencies of a given team.
ETA:
Agreed.
There has to be more to it than Money + Uncertainty = Gambling, though. That definition is so broad as to include pretty much every business.
I’d say it’s gambling because everyone has equal information and nobody has complete information. So everyone is betting on probabilities.
This includes reading the other players. You’re reading them and they are equally reading you. So you’re betting on the probability that your read is better than theirs.
The only way poker stops being gambling is when somebody cheats. Something like a marked deck or collusion between players gives some players information that the other players lack.