« Good game results since July | Home | Chess training blog »

Thomas Jefferson on luck

By Steve | November 1, 2006

I sometimes hear chess players refer to winning or losing games through “luck.” My opponent in the game of horrors that I posted a couple of months ago tried to make me feel better by saying that he won only through luck. Although I appreciated his sportsmanship and courtesy, I declined to take the excuse. I knew that I had lost primarily because of poor time management earlier in the game.

Anyway, I came across a quote from Thomas Jefferson that seems to apply:

“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more luck I have.”

- As quoted in the book Biomedical Image Analysis: Tracking, by Acton and Ray, Morgan & Claypool Publishers, page 45.

Comments