LUCK IN CHESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2437, 28 November 1900, Page 56

LUCK IN CHESS.

Says the N-ew Orleans Times-Democrat: — "Can the element of luck, or chance, present itself in what is purely a contest of mentality versus mentality, in a struggle where the. effort is strictly that of one mind against another mind as to which shall ratiocinate, most deeply and most exactly, upon a given proposition, or upon a slfies of given propositions, of absolutely abstract — nay, of almost mathematical — type? "The answer to this query would seem almost irresistibly in the negative; and yet, strange to say, experience demonstrates the contrary conclusion. There is, indeed, a species of chance, of luck, in the very game itself. That luck lies in the relative and mutual bearing of the possibilities existing in the various positions as they arise; and in the capacity of the player, or players, for discerning them, and for availing themselves of them. Over and over again it occurs, not only in one critical position in a game, but in half a dozen oi more of such positions, that the best move 'lies on the surface,' is so patent to the chessplayer's eye that even a comparative tyro must see it ; that seeing it he must grasp it, and its several successors, and so march on to glorious and wholly unexpected victory. "In a well-known criticism on the chess power of Staunton, Paul Morphy has referred to the faculty of foreseeing and leading up to positions, not mere combinations, as being, emphatically, the indicium of the true chess master mind. Yet, even with the masters themselves, it is certain that positions suddenly develop in the game itself which are wholly independent of their deepest cogitations, and of the possibilities of which, up to the moment of unconscious evolution, they have been quite unaware. These chance evolutions of inherent possibility constitute an element of genuine luck that is existeni in. the very nature of the game."