btw @ifpatriotgames you should be aware that the maths and "logic" that tygxc is going to claim has been debunked extensively on other forums. an individual statement by tygxc may or may not be true, but that must be verified elsewhere.
I have full confidence that you will eventually reach the same conclusion as I, and everyone else who's interacted with tygxc extensively, but I am here to speed up that process and to try to help your time from being wasted.
btw @ifpatriotgames you should be aware that the maths and "logic" that tygxc is going to claim has been debunked extensively on other forums. an individual statement by tygxc may or may not be true, but that must be verified elsewhere.
I have full confidence that you will eventually reach the same conclusion as I, and everyone else who's interacted with tygxc extensively, but I am here to speed up that process and to try to help your time from being wasted.
I don't doubt that. I'm not one to get too far into the weeds on things like this. It's just way above me. My opinion, and it's just an opinion, is that it's way, way too early to be having concrete opinions on solving chess. It's such a complex game, and computers are so ill equipped to handle the problem, I don't see the point in claiming "it's definitely X".
Chess could be a forced draw. But I think the inertia of a first move advantage will someday be realized.
@29
"in 400 years, when computers become more advanced" ++ Computers exist since the Manhattan Project in World War 2, that is only 80 years ago. quantum computers already are available commercially, so will not take more than 80 years to mature.
"And even then it won't be absolutely proven"
++ In about 80 years Chess will be strongly solved to a 32 men table base.
"It's just that every defense by black ends up in a loss"
++ It is the other way around: every try by white ends up in a draw and in several ways.
See WC33/final, World Championship 33 Final
"even though white wins every time" ++ It is the other way around: games draw every time. There is no possibility that somehow, some way eventually white could find a win.
IPG will tend to take the side of illogic.
That's already established.
Regarding tygxc - he will keep pushing disinformation.
A long time ago I reminded him of the limitations on the speed of computers.
That 'operations per second' are severely limited compared to the enormity of the task of 'solving chess'
to which he vehemently responded like this:
'Hey we Don't Care about ops per second. We only care about Nodes per second.'
At that point l realized that trying to reason with tygxc on that would be like trying to reason with a flat-earther.
But that's not personal attack.
tygxc is proud of what he does and says.
So talking about what he says isn't 'personal attack'.
Its similiar with his ridiculous 'taking the square root of the number of possible positions' and his failure to realize that today's engines drawing with each other doesn't mean they played a 'perfect game'.
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But tygxc has already conceded that chess cannot be solved with today's technology.
So then there's a lot of 'infighting' about what 'weakly solved' means.
Which gets ridiculous.
A player 'solves' chess every time he checkmates his opponent.
And every time he 'solves' a tactics puzzle on this website.
In other words - anybody could argue that chess has Already been solved.
Years and years ago.
tygxc's claim of the first move advantage is based on a vast amount of our current chess knowledge, the issue is that tygxc acts like it is a mathematical proof.
tygxc knows far more than I do about chess itself, but I know far more about mathematical proof and game theory concepts. I dont have full confidence in this, but everything ive seen about chess indicates to me that it is **virtually** certain that chess is a draw. not mathematically proven, of course, but a winning line would have to have circumvented searches of vast depth and power, and the probability of that being found decreases by the day.
tygxc keeps missing and refusing to comment on the fact that todays chess engines would beat engines of ten years ago.
And missing the implications of engines of ten years in the future beating up on engines of today.
He doesn't get it that an engine assigning an advantage of less than 0.5 to either side in a position - doesn't mean the position 'is a draw'.
Or more to the point that such engines playing each other and neither side ever getting above 0.5 - is not a 'perfect game'.
My reply to this is to say:
Nobody has ever proven that 'perfect' games of chess have ever been played.
Bobby Fischer said something like: 'if neither player makes a mistake then the game ends in a draw'
That is very misleading.
I'll add to this post in a few seconds - as to why.
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misleading because 'if nobody makes a mistake' is an Abbreviation of the actual reality.
The actual reality is:
'If neither player makes a big enough mistake that is both detected and exploited sufficiently for a win by the opponent - or neither player makes a mistake that is otherwise sufficiently exploited for a win by the opponent or that otherwise leads to a loss for the player making the big enough mistake - then obviously the game ends in a draw Unless somebody's flag falling on their chess Clock also results in 'not a draw' too or instead'
That's the actual reality. Happens constantly all over the world.
tygxc doesn't act like he 'wants to be left alone'.
If others talk separately - expressing more realilstic views he will jump in anyway.
Lol!
No 'rule' against him doing that.
But in the case of Optimissed - its different. And much much worse.
tempo is a term in chess which is usually part of a phrase 'gaining a tempo'.
For example - if a player were to invest several moves in moving the same piece in the opening - then the other side is likely to 'gain tempos'.
But tempo isn't confined to openings.
There's also 'losing a tempo' ... intentionally.
To get something called zugzwang.
Plural of tempo is tempi.
Try Alekhine's defense.
Alekhine by the way was the fourth of the 17 world chess champions and died under suspicious circumstances.
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e4 Nf6 e5 Nd5 c4 Nb6 d4.
Black has now invested three moves in his knight to have it arrive at a dubious b6 square.
While white has made three important and valuable pawn moves.
Some would argue that white has gained two tempi which would mean black has lost two tempi.
e4 is the most popular first move for white - among master chessplayers.
There seems to be some controversy as to why.
My own opinion: Its the one first move that confronts black's g-knight before it moves.
'want Alekhine's defence?'
black's answer far over 90% of the time is No. Black's most popular replies to e4 are - in order - c5 or e5 or e6 or c6 or d6 or d5 or g6. Nf6 is #8. Very far back.
Idea: Nf6 as reply to e4 ... well Nf6 seems to lose a lot of tempos.
Plus black doesn't get to maintain his knight at f6 which is where he wants it.
So he plays something else - and puts the knight up at f6 - later. At a better time.
theres a guy on chess.com called @tygxc who is known to drastically misrepresent research on chess solving to try to justify a delusional fantasy he has. his claims have been debunked extensively on other forums, and it is not worth engaging with him. I'm just here to warn you guys ahead of time so tygxc doesnt get taken seriously.
Tygxc does not understand the concept of a mathematical proof, so do not enter conversation as if basic logic holds in his mind.
For example, when we pointed out that he cant just disregard positions based on conventional wisdom instead of rigorously proving it, he pulled out a merriam webster definition of 'proof' as if it countered our requirements for mathematical rigor.
tygxc is also famous for claiming that a lack of counterexample provided constituted as evidence/proof. this is the appeal to ignorance fallacy, and when I linked him to explain how it was a fallacy, he proceeded to ignore it and continues repeating the fallacy to this day.
That's a lot of words to say you hold a grudge against someone simply because you aren't skilled/experienced enough to understand the words coming out of their mouth.
To be fair, it's actually because they don't undertand the words coming out of their mouth.
ethan are you going to change your post or am I going to need to give more examples of completely false tygxc claims?
again, i dont care about 'rightness' or any sort of personal image. but your post gives false credence to tygxc and could lead to people wasting their time with his ideas.
Tempo is Italian and Spanish for "time".
Learn Latin.
It will help you with a lot of Latin-based languages.
Is there anything to be gained from losing your games in Latin rather than English?
good. ty.
I'd say tygxc doesn't Want to be 'left alone' and it shows.
There's no good way to talk to him directly though.
Its like talking to a flat earther.
I realized that years ago from his ridiculous 'nodes per second' position. Later - after taking many months off the subject - modified my approach.
Sometimes tygxc just asserts something like that he can't be 'responsible for people failing to understand'.
Tempo is a car that Ford made in the 1980s. Our neighbor had one and we borrowed it a couple times. It had a diesel engine and if you floored it you could get up to 45 mph merging on the freeway. It's a car that you drove if you had all the time in the world to get where you wanted to go. It did get about 50mpg on the freeway though.
@27
"So a computer will always be better than a person."
++ An ICCF (grand)master with computers is even better.
"With those advancements over time I think computers will not solve chess"
++ With maturation of quantum computers, now already commercially available,
even a strong solution to a 32 men table base may become possible.
"Another reason is that white going first is an advantage." ++ Yes, but it is only +1 tempo = +0.33 pawn, not enough to win. You can queen a pawn, but you cannot queen a tempo. Moreover, each further move dilutes the advantage. It goes 0-0, 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 3-3...
So if there were a way to convert the +1 tempo to a win, then it would have to happen fast,
and then it would have been found long ago.
"I also think there are countless millions of forced wins for white." ++ No way, not even one.
"Because the very best defense by black will always end up losing."
++ No, because whatever white tries black will always have several defenses to draw.
See the WC33/final, World Championship 33 Final: now 111 draws out of 111 games.
Right now, yes. I don't disagree. But as I said, computers are in their infancy. Right now they are crude, simple little bumbling devices.
There will come a time, soon, when a person combined with a computer is inferior to a computer alone. All the person will do is provide flaws and mistakes.
Right now it's far too early to say whether or not chess is solvable. But in 400 years, when computers become more advanced they will have a much more educated guess. Right now computers and people cannot exploit the first move advantage. They simply do not know how. Just like the computers from the 1940s cannot solve todays complex problems.
A computer/grandmaster team today will be laughably archaic 400 years from now. And maybe it won't be 400 years. They say computers double in power every few years. Maybe it will only be a hundred years. And even then it won't be absolutely proven. It's just that every defense by black ends up in a loss, but there is no way to exhaust EVERY defense by black. So even though white wins every time, there is always going to be the possibility that somehow, some way eventually black could find a draw.
It will never be completely proven.