This is following a discussion brought up in a recent survey:

When you lose a game of chess, what do you usually consider the reason to be?

And I, along with 76% of voters chose the "I didn't play well and my opponent took advantage of my mistakes."  But surely the other 24% are entirely misguided in voting for anything else?

When (if) chess is "solved" it will most likely amount to a draw  and that leads me to my "deep" (TIC) statement:

"No matter how well we play and what tactics we use, we will only ever be capitalising on opponents' mistakes."

Now, persuade me otherwise.

I dont want to persuade you otherwise, I agree with you.

A side note, when the game is solved by computers (as it inevitably will be) the game will go on forever in tournaments etc. anyway, because no human will be able to become as good as the offending machine (at least, without scientific aid). So just because the game is 'solved', it won't change anything- the game will be just as it always has been.

I entirely agree, the sheer amount of permutations ensure this.

You lose a game for two reasons...your opponet was better and or you made the last mistake.  Obviously im not including the cheating aspect in this because i refuse to even give any time to it. 

I especially like that poll because of exactly what you posted.  While i dont agree; there will always be that percentage that will blame everyone and everything besides themselves on a loss.  Some of the excuses i have heard for losing have been pretty rediculous.   Lighting? Why wasnt it an issue until you lost?  People talking?  Again why is it only an issue when you lose? 

As far as computers solving chess...let them.  Tournaments will always have the human factor and it will still be 2 people squaring off against each other.  I unlike some dont see the downfall of chess simply because computers will at some point solve the game. 

Assuming that if/when chess is solved it does turn out to be a draw, I don't think your arguement can really be disputed.

If, however, it turns out that with perfect play from both sides white always wins, then in that one case, i.e. when neither opponent makes a mistake, there is an exception to your statement.

I personally believe that a perfectly played game will be a draw, so I agree with your insight.

Yeah, when you consider how many RPK vs RK endings are draws, a "perfect play draw" seems highly likely, but if it does turn out to be a win for white with perfect play then it would be interesting to know what the correct first move would be.  THAT would end a lot of debate.

Yeah, I my feeling is the same:  There are much bigger imbalances than the half-a-tempo for moving first that are dead draws (K+N v K in any configuration for example), so certainly such a minimal imbalance with so much material on the board should also lead to a draw with perfect play.  These is an even more compelling case when you look at the imbalance as a percentage of the remaining material on the board....