Luck In Chess

THEORETICALLY chess is without luck - no dice are thrown, no cards are dealt and nothing is hidden from sight.
Model-soldier enthusiasts sometimes call wargaming "chess with a thousand pieces."
Chess players could equally call their hobby "wargaming without the luck."
But they never do, and the main reason is that in practice there are many forms of luck in chess.
A player flicks through an opening book at random the night before a big game, and next day his opponent walks right into the one line that has been prepared for him.
Or maybe during a game both players see a devastating move for Black, which is duly played to the joy of Black and the despair of White; but there turns out to be a flaw in both players' calculations and it is White who comes out on top.
I could give many more examples, but it has to be admitted all involve a degree of subjectivity.
This was brought home to me at Paisley, from where I returned yesterday after scoring +3=3-3 in the 125th Scottish Championship. That was good enough for a rating gain of 7.8 Fide elo.

Paisley High Kirk

I felt I deserved to have scored considerably less than I did, but during the tournament another English player, Robert Kane, came up to me and said he had been going over some of my games and felt I had been rather unlucky.
In particular he cited my round-four game against Irish FM David Fitzsimons.

Position after 19...Ng6-f4 in Spanton (1927) - Fitzsimons (2328)

White is doing fine here. True, the bishop is bad, but it is actively supporting White's play on the queenside, where White has more space and a target in Black's c7 pawn.
Now a move such as 20.Qc2 or 20.Qd1 would have served me well. Instead I fell into a trap which DS told me afterwards had, in a very similar position, ensnared Dutch GM Jan Timman in a game against England's Gawain Jones.
20.Qd2? N6xd5!
White must lose a pawn, the point being that 21.exd5?? Qg5 22.Bd3 Nh3+ costs White his queen.
I should have played something like 21.g3, and struggled on a pawn down. But I made matters much worse with …
21.Bc4? Qg5 22.Qa2? Nc3 23.Qb2 Nce2+! 0-1.
So, was I unlucky? RK thought so, but it has to be said that anyone who plays three question-mark moves in a row deserves all the "bad luck" he gets.

Paisley's former finishing mill, with Paisley Abbey in the background

The reason I felt I had a lucky tournament was games like my round-six encounter with Malaysian FM Zhuo Ren Lim.

Position after 37...Bb7-a8 in Lim (2167) - Spanton (1927)

 

I had been under the cosh almost the entire game, desperately defending my weaknesses at e6 and c6.
My last move (37...Bb7-a8) was designed to possibly allow a rook to go to a7, and to ensure that if White at some point exchanged light-square bishops, I would have hopes of counterplay down the a file.
But we had both seen White's next move …
38.b4 axb4 39.Bxb4 c5 40.Bxa8 Rxa8 41.dxc5 bxc5 42.Bc3
Analysis engines reckon the position is dead equal.
My next is perhaps not the best, but it proved good enough.
42...Ra4 43.Rxe6 Rxe6 44.Rxe6 Bf8 45.Qe2 Rxa2 46.Qxa2 Qxe6 47.Be5 Qc6+ 48.Kg1 Qe4 49.Kf2 Qh1 50.Ke3 Qe4+ 51.Kf2 Qh1 52.Ke3 Qh4+ ½-½
Going back to the diagram position, it seems Black's 38th deserves a question mark. Instead, he should play 38.Qd2 or 38.Bb2, or really almost anything non-forcing.
So, overall, did I have a lucky or unlucky Paisley? I still think the former … but then again, that is certainly subjective.