When both players are novice, all patterns are new, and therefore the winner is decided buy pure skill. Then, you may start to learn a few openings, and a few tricks. It doesn't take much to easily beat novices, but you haven't won because of your skills, only because you memorized tricks. There is a huge range where the winner is decided more than by how well you know the opening than by actual skills. Eventually, you get to a point where you already know all the tricks there are to know, and so does your adversary, then most games end up as ties, and wins demonstrate real skill, over and above what's in the books.
Of course in reality it's not that bad, but the quote is at least half-true.
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"chess is a game of skill only at novice and grandmaster levels"
One that hath name thou can not otter
When both players are novice, all patterns are new, and therefore the winner is decided buy pure skill. Then, you may start to learn a few openings, and a few tricks. It doesn't take much to easily beat novices, but you haven't won because of your skills, only because you memorized tricks. There is a huge range where the winner is decided more than by how well you know the opening than by actual skills. Eventually, you get to a point where you already know all the tricks there are to know, and so does your adversary, then most games end up as ties, and wins demonstrate real skill, over and above what's in the books.
Of course in reality it's not that bad, but the quote is at least half-true.