[baliex]

Something that I believe sets chess aside from most other pursuits (e.g. sports, other games) is the lack of luck; it’s almost all skill. You and your opponent both have everything laid out in front of you, and if you’re skilled enough you can see more than they see, etc etc

[iwishiknewlisp]

There is absolutely randomness and variance in chess. And variance/randomness is important for any sport, that is what makes it exciting and worth playing. If there were no randomness then every game against the same team and players would be the same.

And anyway, sports are vastly more complicated than chess is. Just simply dribbling a basketball while bipedal walking is beyond the capability of replication by robot at the current moment. But a home computer from 20 years ago would beat >90% of the world in chess.

[atiedebee]

A computer being better than everyone doesn't mean that chess isn't complicated. With that logic, games like CSGO would not be complicated because you could create a bot that headshots everyone at first sight.

Also, there being variance doesn't mean that there is randomness. There is no random element to the game of chess. All the variance comes from human decisions. It's an unsolved game, so there is no way to guarantee a win.