Is Chess Something We Can Solve?

On the other thread, Elroch was criticisting and getting his herd of trolls to goad tygxc for depending on heuristics to sove chess, which he claim leaves some doubt because they aren't deductive. So I asked Elroch in what way he could represent chess mathematically in what would be an exact way, which could be then solved as a set of equations.

...misunderstanding what constitutes a set of mathematical models, provable theorems, etc.

Of course, I know it's an impossibility since my son is a real mathematician and he has told me that chess cannot be represented mathematically.

He barely speaks to you. You didn't even know what his job was until a couple of weeks ago. You've interacted with us at least an order of magnitude more often, Perhaps approaching two...ergo, anything he has told you is surface level, and your son's understanding of the situation is predicated on your own lack of understanding and contorting the narrative.

He's a far more qualifiied mathematician than Elroch.

Unclear, at best.

So Elroch then claimed that he could write a program that would represent chess mathematicially. I told him that would make him extremely famous, since better mathematicians say it's impossible. I'm not clear where the discussion went from there but I think there was some back-tracking. Then Elroch's trolls got very active again but I was doing one of my business deals, which took me a good few days.

Were you sorting lots of marbles, like last time you used this excuse? Did you buy a truckload of bric-a-brac?

Last time I heard, Elroch is happy to treat solving chess heuristically except when tygxc is doing it. When ty does it, it's wrong, invalid etc.

Posters are relatively happy to discuss heuristics as long as they are not used as the lynchpins of a false "proof". The reasons why are obvious.

Tgxc's main error was to get all hooked up with a chess GM called Svesnikov and take on board what he said, which was very likely to have been drink-powered. Tygxc has a lot of good ideas but the trolls like Mega won't leave him alone since ty seems to have been a mathematician although he refuses to tell us of his qualifications.

But you believe him regardless.

Mega is either a first year maths student or an alt. In either case, he attempts to argue from authority. Playerafar likes telling everyone how wonderful everyone is but me. I have a sneaking feeling he may be on an agenda. He isn't vey bright but then who would be bright if they troll for Elroch? It isn't something that would attract clever people.

It could have been because I asked him the question. Did you consider that?

So why did you point it out to me, obviously imagining it was something I'd missed? Is it the company you keep that lowers your expectations of others?

But is they disagree with you in any way, Elroch, (a good argument to you is something you agree with) then you will go to absi=olutely any lengths because you are only interested in being seens to win but your small band of supposters. I have won many arguments with you on a varriery of subjects but you have never has the good grace to admit it.

You joked a wek or two ago that if I resat an IQ test I would struggle to reach double figures. I'm over ten years older than you are and I think I would still outscore you. Not the way I'm feeling atm though because I just had bird flu, according to my wife. Careful, it's catching from the typeface.

You also misrepresent and routinely use dishonest means so don't accuse others of what you cannot control in yourself. One thing you said that was true is that I definitely am among those who miss Pfren. We'd become friendly after a year or so of pecking at each other. We liked each other.

He knows you don't remember a lot of things and contort what you do, I suspect.

Sorry to others for the flurry of posts, I just got back to my desktop PC after the weekend.

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.

Must be sad to be you.

@Ethan I'm willing to bet $100 that you will end up in the same position as I in time, if you choose to go down the tygxc delusion rabbit hole.
++ Considering I've been interacting with him for 2 years, I sincerely doubt that.

Also, here's some life advice: just because a person is good at chess, that doesn't make them smart.
++ True. Neither does being educated.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/chess-will-never-be-solved-heres-why?page=637#comment-103648529here's tygxc claiming that the amount of work needed to solve chess was done by doing 100 games, in addition to him falsely representing some definitions. for example, a method for black guaranteeing a draw isn't enough to be considered a weak solution of the game, because it does not prove that black cannot win from the start position.
++ Stop lying. These were his exact words:
"For all practical purpose chess is ultra-weakly solved and it is a draw.
Chess is not yet completely weakly solved, i.e. indicating how to draw. The 110 draws out of 110 games in the ICCF World Championship Finals are at least part of a weak solution.
Strongly solving chess to a 32-men table base of 10^44 positions is beyond present technology."

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/chess-will-never-be-solved-heres-why?page=443#comment-80199931here's tygxc making that claim again word for word, alongside a long-disproven proposal that chess could be weakly solved in 5 years.
++ Considering you lied about his earlier claim AND claim here that engines that incorporate 10^9 nodes per second are hugely inaccurate, I refuse to even dignify this with a response.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/chess-will-never-be-solved-heres-why?page=439#comment-80046541here's some random tygxc lies, where he claims chess errors follow a poisson distribution. (I will write my responses in green for this one) (@tygxc quote in blue)++ You are once again lying about what he said. He NEVER claimed chess errors follow a Poisson Distribution. He even clarified this point after you asked for clarification. His exact words: 

"The ICCF WC Finals is sufficiently strong. As calculated there are at most 2 errors / game,so there never occurs a double error and the errors are not coupled.The Tata Steel Masters is not sufficiently strong, as at least one blunder (??) or double error occured changing a win to a loss.Even then Poisson is a good approximation and the calculation is almost correct.Maybe for Tata Steel Masters the real distribution of errors per game differs slightly from the one calculated by the Poisson distribution, but the conclusions stay the same."

however, chess errors (in the ICCF World Championship Finals) only follow one of the four axioms needed in a poisson distribution. (false)

- k is the number of times an event occurs in an interval and k can take values 0, 1, 2, ... . (this one is true) (agreed, this axiom is true)- The occurrence of one event does not affect the probability that a second event will occur. That is, events occur independently. (as you know, a chess game that has errors on it is likely to have other errors, as more difficult lines are missed by both players) (False. Current engines evaluate all positions equally, ICCF players use these. This axiom is true)- The average rate at which events occur is independent of any occurrences. For simplicity, this is usually assumed to be constant, but may in practice vary with time. (as you know a chess game has less errors in the opening, so this is false) (False. Current engines evaluate all positions equally, opening, middlegame, and endgame. This axiom is true)- Two events cannot occur at exactly the same instant; instead, at each very small sub-interval, either exactly one event occurs, or no event occurs. (you can go to the thread yourself and personally verify that tygxc counts a blunder from a win-> loss as a double error, thus violating this axiom as well) (This did not happen in the ICCF WC Finals, only in Tata Steel Masters, which he claimed did NOT strictly follow Poisson Distribution. This axiom is true)
++ As all four axioms are true, the ICCF World Championship Finals follow Poisson Distribution.

 https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/chess-will-never-be-solved-heres-why?page=440#comment-80148381tygxc simply says that none of this happens under a "sufficienly strong" tournament, but never elaborates. this is because tygxc is simply assuming that it is true. there is no reason why a 3000 rated engine might not (rarely) make such a double blunder in a precarious position.
++ Back to lying through our teeth, are we? He already talked about this: 
"the fact that it would even be POSSIBLE for a double error automatically disqualifies it"++ No, something that could occur but does not occur does not disqualify.

You can find each of tygxc's misrepresentations that I mentioned there and personally verify them.
++ I went through and verified the ones above. Congratulations, you only solidifed my opinion that you don't know what you're talking about and that @tygxc does know what he's talking about.

Nobody thinks tygxc is a valued member of the community. In fact, given how prolifically he posts bullcrap, and the tendency for many of chess.com forum posts to come up as google results, he has likely stunted the growth of more young chess players than nearly anyone else on the website.

Nice to know - which is?

"(False. Current engines evaluate all positions equally, opening, middlegame, and endgame. This axiom is true" error rate ≠ how much an engine evaluates a position. you make this mistake multiple times.
++ Your only counterpoint to the third axiom was that "a chess game has less errors in the opening". Since the games from the data set do not have less errors in the opening due to my above reasoning which you did not refute, you do not have a point here. Axiom 3 is true.

"++ Stop lying. These were his exact words:"For all practical purpose chess is ultra-weakly solved and it is a draw.Chess is not yet completely weakly solved, i.e. indicating how to draw. The 110 draws out of 110 games in the ICCF World Championship Finals are at least part of a weak solution.Strongly solving chess to a 32-men table base of 10^44 positions is beyond present technology."

Not a lie at all. you are simply referring to a different comment by tygxc, (notice how i point out that the forum re ordering makes it so comment links do not work). in addition, even the entirely seperate comment you cite has falsehoods. the games in ICCF are not mathematically proven to be errorless on either end so cannot represent a weak solution. tygxc claimed that the equivalent work was done in ICCF as would be required in a weak solution because he calculated that the ICCF used 10^17 total nodes, and the weak solution had 10^17 total positions, so the work would be the same. (according to tygxc).
++ Since chess.com is making sources weird, I'm willing to rescind my statement on this one until I can figure out what really happen. Can you screenshot what you were referring to and post it here?

" Considering you lied about his earlier claim AND claim here that engines that incorporate 10^9 nodes per second are hugely inaccurate, I refuse to even dignify this with a response."

Again, never lied. and never claimed that, you are twisting words.
++ Your exact words: "you assume perfect play from each node, whereas engines that already incorporate 10^9 nodes a second are hugely inaccurate." That being said, I will rescind the first part of my claim again until I receive your source correctly.

"(This did not happen in the ICCF WC Finals, only in Tata Steel Masters, which he claimed did NOT strictly follow Poisson Distribution. This axiom is true)"

you have no evidence that it didnt happen, nor can you prove that it wont happen again in the future. it's an imperfect engine evaluation of positions, so by definition such errors are possible, which make the axiom false.
++ Considering the current ICCF World Finals is the only thing he claimed followed the Poisson Distribution, the part marked in red is incorrect at least. You have no evidence that it did or even COULD, as your only argument against it is that "engines are imperfect", however, an IM to GM rated player with 5 days/move consulting multiple of the best engines currently available run at the highest settings currently available will never make this mistake. Even if one engine misevaluates a positions from a guaranteed win into a guaranteed loss (A swing of a minimum of 3 points, as generally an advantage of more than +-1.5 is considered guaranteed winning, something which never happens, even using low-depth browser-based Stockfish 15 NNUE for under 5 minutes), the other multiple engines will catch the mistake as will the IM/GM.

On the tata steel, in actuality, tygxc did indeed originally claim that tata steel followed the poisson distribution, but we brought direct proof that it didnt so he back tracked.
++ This is good right?

 No, something that could occur but does not occur does not disqualify.

Maybe you should try reading the axioms again. it says CANNOT occur, not DOES not occur. 
++ True. I'll be more firm. It cannot occur.

You seem to be missing the part of my comment which pointed out how the forum reordering broke the specific comments that i was referring to.
++ That being said, I find it hard to believe he said such different things to what I responded to considering I checked the page linked, the page before, and the page after for all of your links. I'll reserve my judgement for now though.

First, I've seen valued members of the community leave permanently due to personal attacks like these over sustained periods of time. @pfren comes to mind, this post gives a bit of insight into the issue: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/why-arent-titled-players-more-active-in-the-forums?page=1

Second, I say this not to offend but to inform, you come across as a troll. You're a meme profile 1400 bullet player, so your credibility is dubious to begin with, and it didn't help that when you responded directly to him you were just incorrect on all accounts. Barring the baseless accusations (lack of understanding of mathematical proof, and the direct quote "tgxyc pretends that it is rigorous"):

• He never mentioned an engine evaluation. Any experienced chess player can tell you that a pawn is roughly equivalent to three tempi, and so White is roughly +0.33 in terms of material at the start of the game. There is a positive correlation between the value of tempi and the number of active pieces on the board, and so in general every move does dilute the value of this first-move advantage.
• Everything I can immediately think of that he says IS in fact general chess knowledge, such as chess is a draw, "enter dubious opening here" is dubious, 1. e4 is best for White and 1. e4 e5 and 1. d4 d5 are best for Black
• His quotes are not out of context considering they are from masters in their field and pertinent to the topic.

Third, you don't actually have a source to back up... any of your claims. His sources may be appeals to ethos at best, but they aren't intended to be sources. They're intended to be visual aides. When he says chess is a draw, that's common knowledge (which you DO NOT have to cite in essentially any form of essay or debate) and so his link to the ongoing 2022 ICCF Worlds is not a source or a citation, it's a visual aide to show that the strongest human chess on the planet currently is leading to a VAST majority of draws. Meanwhile, you have made various brazen claims about his lack of credibility with nothing to back any of them up except your word. Also, calling something a fallacy does not prove it false whether or not it is a fallacy.

In conclusion, you come across as a troll who personally attacked a valued member of the community baselessly using argument from fallacy because you don't understand that common knowledge doesn't need sources.

Hence my statement, 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.

If you can prove my statement false by backing your points up with actual proof and attacking tgxyc's POINTS instead of him personally, I'll address them. Until then, though, I will continue to defend his credibility as it stands.

The reson the trolls are having a go at me is that a couple of months ago I tuned in the ther is chess solved thread and noted they were just attacking tygxc. A couple of days leter, they were still at it. megacheese is one of the worst trolls in that respect but they all take their cue from Elroch. I told them not to do it and when they wouldn't stop I decided to win an argument against Elroch, which isn't too difficult for me.

You're right, they're trolls, they don't argue about points and it's simply ad hominem. It's really pathetic.