True, I did forget that for the moment. It's been a long day for me. Its almost time to study the back of my eye lids.

The number of positions unique to 960 would still be mindblowing, even if it's only an extremely small fraction of the total.

The idea of engines being "good" is only valid in an unsolved environment.  One engine being "good" and the other engine being "better" can only make sense if the engines don't fully know the result of their decisions.  For example, a jet may fly faster than its counterpart in a race, but once either reaches the speed of light, speed becomes irrelevant.  Once Chess is solved, how "good" an engine is becomes irrelevant.  As of right now though, engines being stronger than people now makes some sad, but could also be thought of as a human achievement.  The engines didn't make themselves.   Regardless of this though, just because an engine can beat a human doesn't mean anything other than it knows how to play better. 

@Browni
I'm also assuming that the technology present at the time chess is solved (assuming it's possible) would be astounding enough that 960 would not stave off a total solution for long.  So that it's just a fractional amount is all I was concerned about.

What will be the impact of chess being solved?

His point (which I made earlier in the thread as well) is that having computers that can beat any human isn't operationally different for us players than a total solution.  It may be psychologically different, but that's it.

I don't necessarily think they know how to play better. I think a better way of looking at it is that, they know how to play as well as we do but, their brain is like having many of our brains, but all wired to function as one. I am sure if we could go to the hobby shop and pick up a 1000 brain coordination kit, we could smoke Houdini after we rolled it up tight...

Probably the biggest benefit will be that there will no longer be threads like this one (or the countless others like it).  We'll know the answer to the question so it won't need to be asked over and over.

I agree with you on that, but I thought you were saying that there are only a million positions unique to 960 as an upper estimate. I think the number should be much much higher.

Well, we always will want something to talk about, even if it is the only thing...if you don't believe me, refer to some of my off topic posts in this thread for a reference...unless of course you are one of those people who can't think of anything good to talk about yourself nor deal with your critics, so you always want to put down others for thinking out loud when they are tired of being quiet...

Having something to talk about isn't the same thing as having something to say.

Well, if you think about all legal positions, that's an awful lot of variation, and I have to wonder how many positions chess 960 would offer that are unique.

Assuming even that they prune certain move orders when solving classical chess, I don't think chess 960 would offer that many more.

That said, I was probably pretty far off when I said only a few thousand or a million :)  But I do think it would add many orders less than classic chess has.

I've already solved chess.  But my dog ate the 3x5 card that I wrote the solution down on.

it's fun when people talk about solving chess.

Chess can be solved by immortal monkeys.

the only thing worse than a thread about solving chess...  posts about monkeys solving chess.

A thousand monkeys banging on 1,000 typewriters couldn't beat Bobby Fischer.

And they end up the same way.

Yes, and I've discovered a truly marvelous proof for this.  Pity it wont fit in this post.  Maybe in a few hundred years they'll prove me right.

I dont think anyone should worry about this.