Chess is like playing Poker. How much is "Luck" and "Bluffing a factor to chess?

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isabela14

Both are a game of risk and rewards, strategies and calculations. A miscalculation can be disastrous. Can you bluff and get lucky? Your thoughts?

theLordOfTheNorth92
isabela14 wrote:

Both are a game of risk and rewards, strategies and calculations. A miscalculation can be disastrous. Can you bluff and get lucky? Your thoughts?

Cards will never match chess. Just sayin'

isabela14

@bb_gum234, would saying "Checkmate" for every move you make is legal?

isabela14

@CM mechanicas. I may not be able to completely refute your statement since you are of distinguished position per your title. However, I also believed that chess have a lot of probability when humans not engines plays the game. Just like in poker, a player also calculates probabilities and logics to what is presented in front of them. Both use "pieces" that are precise to their purpose and objective is to outsmart the opponent given the situation presented to them. Correct me if I'm wrong, logical moves are based on assessed past experiences. I'm not saying that chess is exactly a mirror image of poker. But certainly there are many aspects of both games that are comparable. 

isabela14

Agree or disagree, how many times have you experienced that when your opponent moved something you never expected that is not logical, and you blundered so bad before realizing it. In this case, everything is in front of you, unable to apply logic. Do you think your opponent just got lucky and his bluff paid off? 

In poker, bluffing is "a"part of the game but is "not" the main element of the game. You still need to back it with solid understanding and logic to the position presented. Winning combinations are precise. straight flush beats 4 aces. 

Hadron

Luck first. There is no such thing as luck in chess. There is only poor play and or a lack of skill. To a scribe either or to or not having 'luck' is simply excuse to either make one feel good or to explain why one did not win a game.

Bluffing. Bluffing in chess is more of a strategy of misdirection that rather depends on one's opponent being unable to see through the illusion being attempted.

Of course if you are trying to bluff in a position then it is not unreasonable to conclude that the said position is quite dire and if you get away and win, are you lucky?....or is it your opponents fault for not having the (or any) skill to see the bluff?

I love chess....sooo deep at times

isabela14

To my understanding, chess is not of exact science despite the fact that everything is presented in front of you. Every game is played differently and solutions varies each time a move is made. Machines moves are logical but not exactly precise. As deep as it calculates, it still is dependent only to assessed inputs based on past experiences. A poker player is no less different. They assess and reassess each time a move/shown is presented. Chess players do the same. They may able to asses the next 10 moves, but I think they need to reassess when given a different scenario than they previously thought. It won't be a game of wits after all if you can force move everything. 

chessterfish

I've always thought of the skillsets in poker as comparable to playing the opening in chess multiple times.  There are a few reasons I make this comparison:

In poker you don't really think 'deep' at the table and your only tough decisions are on the river.  I would compare this to chess in that your opening prep is done before the game and your time thinking begins when your opponent does something weird or you get out of your book.  The thinking you are doing is more strategic.  My opponent is doing x with y therfore I should do z for example.  This is similar to playing a chess opponent over and over, for example last time I played white against x he did y and I lost, but he has a bad score in z, so I'll adjust and play that instead.

Eoin-MacLove

luck accounts for every single one of your wins, you don't win if your opponent makes no errors, bluffing is something i use whenever i am losing, so the answer is "a lot".

isabela14

I understand that the majority of commenters are achieved chess players based on their deep understanding of the game. I am not as accomplished but a mere casual player that loves both games. I play OTB games and Live poker games ( I play low stakes only). In saying so, I opined that "chess is like playing poker" is based only on my amateurish experience. It is my way that the subject could interest some highly knowledgeable chess enthusiasts and give me insights how they play the game. Perhaps you may have assumed that I play chess more on probability than logic of which you are correct. I quote IM mecanicas, "Chess is played more on logic while Poker is on probability". Literally, I know what it means, but I have difficulty differentiating between the two. And there's no such thing as "luck" in chess but only bad moves and decisions. I beg to differ. Poker players would make an argument. He also stated and I quote "poker is a game of chance that obeys the laws of randomness while chess to absolute rational purposes". Would it be that for recreational or casual players like me, that our thought process would be more on probability than logically since we are maybe incapable of deep calculations thus explaining our random and illogical moves? And that logical thinking are more for advance players? On the lighter side of things, you won't have that high ratings if not for us randomly pushing pieces. wink.png

JuergenWerner

Chess? Poker?

lfPatriotGames

Maybe I dont understand exactly what bluffing is. I thought it was when you pretended to have or do something, when in reality  you dont have it or you dont do it.  I dont see how there can be any bluffing in chess. There is nothing hidden. Your opponent can see every single piece on the board and figure out if a "bluff" is real or not. In cards, the opponent cant see your cards so she doesn't know if you are bluffing or not. There are no hidden elements in chess, both sides can see all the cards.

lfPatriotGames
9497010838 wrote:
IfPatriotGames!
Oh, I can tell you bluffing happens a lot in chess! In a 24 game tournament for example, a player might try and make his opponent THINK certain moves are coming based upon past performance in previous games. The bluff here is to get the opponent to make moves based upon that assumption. Then BOOM! Change it up, send different moves that the opponent isn’t anticipating. The idea here is to try and get the opponent out of a comfort zone, burn clock time, and maybe lose confidence.

BLUFFING IS HUGE IN CHESS.

I dont see how that's bluffing. I can see the moves. In poker, it would be like seeing the cards the bluffer has. You know what he's trying to do. In chess, I can see the trap she is trying to lay, the sacrifice, the combination, etc. I can see it all. Either it's a clever tactic, or it's  not, I think bluffing involves a certain amount of hiding something but I could be wrong. In chess, nothing is hidden.

lfPatriotGames
9497010838 wrote:
The chess we play at chess.com, I call fake chess. It’s the same for on-line poker games where you’re up against players you haven’t played before or will probably never play again. I call that fake poker. It’s almost imaginary compared to real life over a table facing down your opponent.

Smooth Criminal, I disagree. In real chess, bluffing is huge, and a lot of the same aspects that you think of in poker manifest in real OTB, clocked, tournament chess.
IfPatriotGames: the unhidden aspects diminish in a “for all the marbles” showdown. It actually becomes very similar to poker. There are tons of hidden aspects in Mano-a-mano real chess. Please don’t think of chess like computers do. Yes, it’s true. There are only 3 aspects of the sport that can be boiled down to in any particular board situation: position, material or time. But people, real humans are always looking for something else. I explained in an earlier post what bluffing is in chess. Primarily it’s trying to get your opponent to think one way, so you can attack in a different way.

I suppose most people are too dense, or too busy, or too whatever, to give this idea the level of attention it deserves. But, I will tell you that Magnus has learned that bluffing isn’t just what you do in the heat of a game. Magnus is bluffing as we speak. He doesn’t even know who his next opponent is, but he’s sending a particular signal that might cause the guy to lower his guard. Magnus has a naive demeanor he’s honed over the last couple decades. He wants his opponent to think he’s just a young kid trying to make a name for himself. He wants his opponent to say, “wow! Magnus is a really nice guy!”

Then, when it’s board time, he unleashes a shark. That is how chess bluffing works. But again, most people aren’t at a level of interest to perceive it.

I dont think most people are too dense to give this attention. They just see it as it is. The dictionary says bluffing is to mislead by a display of strength or self confidence. In chess, there is no bluffing because either someone plays better, or they dont. Misleading is setting a trap or something similar, not bluffing. There is no deceit in chess. All the moves and pieces are there for everyone to see. Each side assesses the situation to the best of their ability. But there are no hidden cards, no hidden pieces, no making the opponent think you have something you dont. Could you bluff in poker if all the cards were visible to all the players at all times?

I think bluffing, at least the way the dictionary defines it, involves a bit of luck. You dont know what your opponent has, so it's a matter of luck if they have good cards or dont have good cards. In chess, there is no luck. If a player tries to "bluff" I think it's really just a lower rated player hoping for luck. I think most higher rated players dont rely on luck.

GWTR
CoffeeAnd420 wrote:

Actually, guys - There's very little crossover between poker and chess when you really dig into the two games. They require totally different skill sets and the two games are predicated around a totally different foundation. 

Don't they also say "check" in poker?

Jayesh-15
Just calculate,it is the best way
Quasimorphy

Capablanca said Alekhine's game was 20% bluff.

Skip to about 1:15 in the video.

https://youtu.be/nuyMzb5_tlU

BartNewton

I think that chess is not pure math after all but the level of emotional craze there is way lower than in the case of poker

HikaruNacamuruchallenge

Depends what level your on if your like a 200 to 800 bluffing might work sometimes.

But for the game as a whole bluffing won't really work.

 

Kotshmot
JamieMartins wrote:

I have to say I'm not entirely convinced that luck and bluffing are major factors in chess. While there may be some level of psychological gamesmanship involved, ultimately it comes down to strategy, calculation, and execution. 

It's surprising how big a role luck has in chess when you think about it mathematically. Human understanding and calculation can factor in only so much information thats available on the board and what is missed act as random variants that can work for you or against you.

Say you play a careless move queen takes pawn. Your move will always have unaccounted for effects. It could be for example that your move just unintentionally prevented a mate threat from your opponent that you didn't notice, or flip side of the coin your queen gets trapped. The less information is accounted for (lower elo), the bigger the role of random variants and luck is.

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