@george_mcgeorge et all,
"Is it? While a lot in chess depends on your abitility to calculate and memorize, there's still the element of luck. And while I think that in the majority of cases the better (or at least better prepared) player wins, there's always the chance that you get lucky, be it through an illegal move, a one move blunder or - in case of online chess - a mouseslip. Now, while all these things are both skill as well as luck based, I think that #40 isn't completely wrong. However, being not completely wrong doesn't make it right: As #40 presents the case, it sure sounds like everything in chess is luck based (more or less immediately contradicted in #40, I might add) which is not true (or is it?). [b]You can not compare a dice roll with the game of chess - at least in most cases you can not.[/b]
Finally, someone who does grasp at the least part of the essence. That said - not completely. The last sentence says it all. In the end, a dice roll can be compared with a game of chess. Merely because winning needs a bad move from the opponent - and that is called 'luck'. Without it, all chess games would end up in a draw. We are human, do make mistakes. Commonly known as the 'luck factor'.