Will chess be solved?
One of the reasons why chess is such an interesting game is that you never know what your opponent is going to do. It is an unpredictable game where you have to think about what is the best move in each position. But will it always be like this, or will chess be solved in the future?
Table of contents
When is a game considered to be solved?
Which games are already solved?
What do influential people think about it?
Do we have a solution to chess?
Will chess be solved in the future?
When is a game considered to be solved?
A game is solved when someone finds a way of playing in which one of the players always wins, or in which there is always a way of drawing. This means that you can predict the final outcome from any position (assuming all players play perfectly). This concept is mainly used in strategy games where there is no fate.
There are different types of solved games:
- Ultra-weak: it is possible to predict from the beginning who will be the winner, but it is not said which move each player should make.
- Weak: there is an algorithm that gives at least one way to win from the beginning of the game.
- Strong: There is an algorithm that gives the perfect way to play from every position.
In chess we are looking for a strong solution.
Which games are already solved?
At the moment, some games have already been solved, such as tic-tac-toe and checkers.
Checkers was solved in 2007. Checkers is similar to chess, but has some features that make it easier to solve. For example, all the pieces have the same value and all move in the same way.
Although checkers is not considered a difficult game, it took us about 18 years to find a solution, using more than 200 computers working simultaneously and analysing more than 1020 positions. The conclusion was that with perfect play, the result of checkers should always be a draw.
However, the results of checkers cannot be used to solve chess due to its greater complexity.
What do influential people think about it?
Some influential people have given their opinion on when chess will be solved.
Among them we can find Elon Musk, one of the most important and famous businessmen, who wrote about it on Twitter:
Computers are so much better than humans at chess, it’s absurd. I predict that chess will be essentially fully solved (like checkers) within 10 years.
Elon Musk
There was quite a stir when this was said and dozens of people from the chess world replied that this would be impossible.
Another person (perhaps not so famous, but with more chess knowledge) gave another more coherent answer about when chess would be solved. In 1951 Claude Shannon stated that it would not be possible for a computer to solve chess because it would have to analyse about 10120 different positions. In theory it is possible to analyse such a huge amount, but it would take 1090 years.
Do we have a solution to chess?
Although we have not yet solved chess, and it does not look like we will any time soon, we have already made progress in the endgame.
In the 80s we solved all endgames with 4 or less pieces. In the 90s we reached 5 pieces and it was not until 2005 that we solved 6 piece endgames. After that it took us another 10 years to reach 7 pieces. The problem is that every time we try to increase the number of pieces, the number of positions grows exponentially, so despite the technological advances it is a very slow process and every time we take a step forward it gets much harder.
Currently you can check every endgame in the Syzygy tables, which can tell you from any position (with 7 or less pieces including kings) whether White wins, draws or loses. It is amazing how difficult the endgames can be. There is even a position whose solution is: white moves and checkmates in 546.
Will chess be solved in the future?
Today we are not able to solve chess, but perhaps with the technological advances we will develop in the future it will be an easier task. According to Jonathan Schaeffer, the AI expert who worked on solving checkers, it would not make sense to try to solve chess until we develop a new computing technology such as quantum computers.
Quantum computers use qubits and a normal computer uses bits. The difference between them is how fast they can process information and which logic gates they use. With quantum computers we will be able to get solutions much faster, but they are quite expensive and we need people who know how to use them. This is why there are only 3 quantum computers at the moment and they are owned by big companies.
We are not currently able to solve chess, but with some technological advances we may be able to do so in the future.
However, as the chess player Alex Colovic said:
It doesn't matter whether chess can be solved or not. No human being will be able to remember it, so it will continue to be played between them.
Alex Colovic
