"Good Luck"

Now I'm wondering if anybody wish cheater_1 good luck in vote chess and mean the opposite.

 

Either you take offense at someone saying good luck, in which case, don't reply and beat them, or you see it for what it usually is, a harmless greeting. Two words shouldn't really phase you for correspondence chess.

shakje wrote:

Either you take offense at someone saying good luck, in which case, don't reply and beat them, or you see it for what it usually is, a harmless greeting. Two words shouldn't really phase you for correspondence chess.

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 They don't phase me, I understand it for what it is, but.. why? Like I said, why not something more appropriate, like "hand shake" or "lets have a good game"?

Well, at a guess, all games when they started out were determined more by luck than skill. When you start a game off you want to wish your opponent well. Say if you beat your opponent, you absolutely thrash them, even though you know they're as good as you usually. You ask them about it and they tell you that they were involved in a small car crash earlier, or their friend died, so their concentration wasn't really focused properly. Surely your one-sided game was down to luck? At the end of the day, chess is affected by luck as much as something such as football (sigh, soccer), just in different ways. Here's another situation, say you only have time to look through two or three variations and there's 5 decent looking candidate moves (all with equally good merits on first glance), it's purely down to luck if you start off by choosing the right 2 to analyse or not. If you wish your opponent luck, you're not so much wishing that they have luck with which to beat you, in my opinion, you're wishing that they don't have bad luck that affects their game artificially, but that you get their best game. If you beat someone on their best form, it's far more satisfying than playing them when they're distracted and making stupid moves, or when you know that you've beaten them because you saw a move that they missed in deep analysis, instead of knowing that they missed a move because of time.

As for  me I simply type in what I intend to say/wish, " Let's have a great game."

:: shrug :: I wish my opponents "good luck" out of sportsmanship.

There is always an element of luck when humans play. Ben Franklin says, "Diligence is the mother of good luck." If I spend the weekend preparing a new line in the Symmetric English and my next tournament opponent plays into it, I was lucky, although of course my hard work was also an important factor. :)

To be honest, I really do mean good luck to my opponent when i say it.

I like to win, and that is definitely my purpose while studying the positions and making my moves.

But what I love about chess has nothing really to do with winning or losing, it's the beauty of the game. I love studying great games, and I absolutely LOVE being a part of a game that I can be proud of, win or lose.

Luck may or may not be part of the game, that depends on how broad your definition of what luck could be in respect to chess.

It is just a greeting, but if I were trying to imply something by it, I would probably be trying to say "lets have a good game and create something we can both be proud of!"

Of course.. saying good luck is just easier.

Nice topic by the way...

Joe14 wrote: .

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well said joe, i too think we should now close off this thread.

ps > ( this for you baseballfan ) good luck with your next thread

I use the formula: "May the best player win - unless it's you, of course". Simple, polite, honest, competitive.

artfizz wrote:

I use the formula: "May the best player win - unless it's you, of course". Simple, polite, honest, competitive.

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LOL, I like that one. I may start to use some variation of it myself. :-)

It would be better if phrased in the form of a greeting and response - otherwise your opponent has to think of a comeback e.g.

Let's not forget that perennial favourite greeting: "Resistance is futile!"

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Chess should develop it's own inimtible antonyms and superstitions e.g.

"Hang a rook!"

Never explicitly mention the games and gambits designated by C44. Always refer to them as the "Macbeth play".

it's polite, it is nice sportsmanship, don't be a turd.

smaile and say thank you, you too, or good day, i hope we have a challenging game, or just good game.

ps, when i tell an actor to "break a leg" i do really, really, REALLY want them to experiance a compound fracture to their femur in the middle of their performance...

so...if you say *handshake* and don't literaly shake my hand isn't it kinda the same thing as saying  "good luck"...

not that I would shake your hand anyway due to being germaphobic...that is unless I had some hand sanitizer in my pocket, but that's a whole different issue...

There's no reason to reduce the phrase "good luck" to the simple components of which it is made.  ie., "good luck" does not equal "good" + "luck".  It's a simple greeting... you don't even have to believe in "luck" (whatever that is) to use it.  Give me an equally pithy (brief) and appropriate alternative, and I'll gladly use it.

I'm not a very competitive player (perhaps that's why my rating has plummeted recently!) and so do not mind wishing my opponent to gain the better of me in a game... after all, it's just a game...

Perhaps the opening phrases from other sports could be adopted (or adapted) for chess? e.g.

En garde - a French phrase meaning 'on guard'. Used to warn a fencer to assume the position preparatory to a duel, or to warn an opponent in chess that their queen is threatened.

Another French possibility :- en joie = Enjoy !

I've seen a few threads where there's been a misinterpretation of something typed into the chat box, particularly relatively standard greetings or sign-offs.

In order to try to dispel any future miscommunications I've put together a handy translation table for a few of the most common greetings and sign offs.  This should hopefully serve to ensure that everyone has a common basis of understanding with respect to what each of these really means and eliminate the unfortunate misunderstandings we've all been experiencing:

no one would play chess if it was a game of luck... then again look at poker