What will be the impact of chess being solved?

"There is a theory which states.....the Universe will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

But...

The Super-Computer Deep Thought says the Answer is...

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

And Another Thing... 

Don't forget your towel.

Calm down.When everyone becomes a GM,start worrying.I feel that there are so many things to study that i need a second life.

People will play dubious moves because the opponent won't waste time memorizing the refute.

Maybe intuitively its why I already do on some level. I don't think chess is solved, but certain opening/defense combintions are pretty well explored already.

If that really is John Nunn, he needs to do something about that hair.

Great chess writer and GM, in any case.

Chess is far too complex to be solved anytime in the next million years.

There are just too many possibilities.

However if you just want to know how a perfect game would come out--Many have played a 100% perfect game....Why..because it is quite obvious that with perfect play--chess is a draw. It takes a mistake to lose a game.

Thus a lot of very short games could be perfect at least for one side.

I'm not sure that it's quite obvious, but I do think it's quite probable.

A blowout in which one side played perfectly isn't a perfect game -- it's a game in which one side has perfect play.  Fools mate is one obvious example that's far from perfect.

Checkers (well, that's what Grandma called it - its also known as English Draughts) was solved in 2007, and the verdict was that perfect play would result in a draw.

I believe that the same will be said of chess, in which case there is still every reason to continue playing because each side won't content themselves to the "best" move available. Even in high-level play, someone will deviate from the accepted norm to play something different. Club players still play their favorite pet lines long after they have been declared unsound by GMs. I remember playing against Grob's in a USCF tournament and I still love the Ponziani even though a number of strong players on here have condemned it.

By the way - I recently received my copy of the new definitive edition on on the Ponziani and will contend that it is completely playable, although I wouldn't venture it against a titled player.

There are many games where one side makes no mistakes at all which would lose the game. There are some perfect games where neither side makes a mistake. These are usually very short games.  Example

1. e4  e5  2. Nf3  agreed drawn. This is a perfect game. 

Is it though?  What if white has a forced win after that position?

Though Chess cannot be solved completely in a long, long time, haven't they already solved large move trees that goes back even to the very first moves of the game? For me this is very exciting, because we're beginning to refute openings -- you know, like the King's Gambit.

Also, people have to keep in mind that in order to solve chess for practical reasons, one does not have to analyze every single position theoreticly possible -- for instance, you can ask the computer to stop analyzing positions where one side has the advantage of +5 and no checkmate in sight.

It's facinating to think that one day, we may know that only e4 and d4 is winning for white and all other first moves draws, ...e5 is drawing, the sicillian defence is drawing if played in the dragon variation etc etc.

Some of these lines are not that far off being solved, are they?

Tic-Tac-Toe was solved centuries ago, but funnily enough, kids still play it.

Checkers was solved years ago, but the boards keep being sold at the toy stores.

And consider non-"Mind Sport" games. Golf is effectively solved. There is a perfect swing for any given shot. That doesn't mean even the professional players can do it every time, and that is what makes for exciting competition.

The real question is that if we know the "correct" outcome of the game is a draw, what will that mean for scoring systems and things like Sophia rules? I don't see the impact on the popularity of the game being significant. But the impact on how we score the game might be huge.

You don't know that. Future analyzis may show that 1....e5 is actually an inferior response compared to 1....c5 for black. Hell, what if 1.e5 isn't even the best first move for white?

we're only at 6-7 man tbs [tablebases].  chess is not theoretically practically solvable. there is some math somewhere on this on the interwebz.  however, if you like, there are clone batches of millions of miniaturized people stored in a compression field stored underground working on this project right now in SE Asia.  they say it will take them another 10-20 light years, give or take, to solve chess.

No, they haven't. The report about the KG being solved was an April Fool's Day joke this year perpetuated by ChessBase.

If they are going to refute an opening by brute force calculation, my guess is that that the first to go would be some dodgy black counter-gambit. Since there are more than a few of those which are already known to be worse for black in every variation anyway.

Haha yeah, I knew that article was an April's fools, I just meant that King's Gambit is refuted in general (no GM's play it anymore, it isn't considered optimal) and that other openings will follow the more we are able to calculate towards the beginning of the game.

How far back are we able to brute force a calculation? If we begin at a more developed position like say move 7, wouldn't it be possible to solve that one? Or is that way optimistic?

 Again, one might be content with 95% propability of the computer lines indeed being "perfect" instead of 100% to make it possible.

So, in your opinion, Carlson, Ivanchuk, Polgar, Short, and Nakamura (all of whom have played KG's in the last year as white) are what if not GMs?

Good job zeroing right in on the part that doesn't make any sense....

Great analogy. Yeah, if you're golfing, you never have to think.

Stick to things you know.