Can chess be solved?
“The chess board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature.
— Thomas Huxley
Chess is one of the oldest unsolved mysteries we still willingly sit down to face. Every time two players shake hands across a board, they’re stepping into a universe with more possible positions than atoms in the observable cosmos. And yet, in 2025, with machines that can out-calculate us by unimaginable margins, the question still hangs in the air: Can chess, the complex game of strategy, patience, and dedication, be solved? Find that out and more in this blog!
Contents
Is chess any types of "solved"?
Before we talk about chess getting solved, what does “solved” even mean in a game context? Well, there are 2 types of solving. The first being Weakly Solved.
A game that is “weakly solved” means that if you follow the best strategy, you can guarantee a result. For example, checkers is weakly solved. Researchers proved that with perfect play, the game ends in a draw. They also provided the strategy to do this, making checkers weakly solved.
On the other hand, a game that is strongly solved means a game that is solved in the most rigorous sense; we know the exact outcome that will happen from the starting position, and also the most optimal move for every possible position. For example, Tic-Tac-Toe is always going to be a draw with best play, and for connect four, the first player always wins with best play (which surprised me!).
Is Chess Any Types Of “Solved”?
No. Chess is not solved (it’s not even that close!), and here’s why. We actually don’t know the theoretical outcome of perfect play. I would think it is a draw, but it is not known for sure. Only some endgames have been solved using tablebases. You may be thinking, why hasn’t it been solved yet? Well, chess has 119 million possible positions after just MOVE THREE! And as the game goes on, that number increases so much. In fact, according to the calculations of American Mathematician Claude Shannon, there are around 10^120 (or 10 followed by 120 zeros. I am not going to write all those zeros in case you were wondering. Sorry…) possible chess games, which is so large that it basically zooms past my comprehension. In fact, there are more possible chess positions than there are atoms in the observable universe!
Elon Musk posted on social media once that he thinks that chess will be solved in the next ten years. While the rise of chess engines and AI is very impressive (and a bit scary), I doubt that technology would grow to solve such an intellectually demanding game in such little time. What do you think? Tell me in the comments.
If chess really does get solved, it’s actually going to be fine. In theory, not many players would be able to remember the “perfect” line move by move, and even if they DO remember it, the opponent could just play the second best move for example. Now what do you do? It is clear that you can’t remember all the best moves for all the positions even if it is technically “solved”. The gap between theoretical knowledge and practical execution is quite large. Much like Tik-Tac-Toe still remains playable and quite fun despite being fully solved, chess would most probably remain quite engaging, mentally challenging, and best of all, fun! This means that solving chess would definitely change it’s theoretical landscape, but not it’s beautiful core.
Thank you so much for reading! Hope you enjoyed! See you again sometime in the future!
