Chessis not yet solved. With the best of play Black should always draw.
Chess Solved!! With the best of play Black should always win
#4
As long as the engines have not calculated "all the moves", chess is not yet solved. This will probably happen before the end of this century, but until then chess is not solved. The engines do not even have to calculate all the moves: it suffices to demonstrate that for all plausible white moves there always exists at least one black reply that leads to a table base draw. Even that is a formidable task, so vast that it presumably requires a quantum computer to do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solved_game
There are more possible chess positions than the atoms in our solar system. That number is huge. Why are people so obsessed with a "solved game"? Big deal... 🙄....no human could ever calculate those moves... Checkers was "solved" and everyone still sucks at Checkers....so why do humans keep trying to "solve" games? We will NEVER BE ABLE TO COMPUTE LIKE A COMPUTER. Just enjoy the damn games people.... Jesus... 🙄
#6
Atoms in universe: 10^80
https://www.universetoday.com/36302/atoms-in-the-universe/
Chess positions: 10^45
https://tromp.github.io/chess/chess.html
Many of these chess positions are either illegal or irrelevant. The number of legal and relevant positions is rather like 10^20.
No human can calculate that, but a quantum computer can possibly calculate from the initial position towards a table base.
After checkers was solved competitive play of it declined.

#6
Atoms in universe: 10^80
https://www.universetoday.com/36302/atoms-in-the-universe/
Chess positions: 10^45
https://tromp.github.io/chess/chess.html
Many of these chess positions are either illegal or irrelevant. The number of legal and relevant positions is rather like 10^20.
No human can calculate that, but a quantum computer can possibly calculate from the initial position towards a table base.
After checkers was solved competitive play of it declined.
I don't think checkers being solved has anything to do with it's popularity. Board games in general have declined in popularity because of other things. Mostly electronic entertainment. My guess is competitive play of checkers is more affected by solving than chess is. Chess is more complex. So if by some miracle chess is solved I don't think it would have the same effect that solving checkers has.

#6
Atoms in universe: 10^80
https://www.universetoday.com/36302/atoms-in-the-universe/
Chess positions: 10^45
https://tromp.github.io/chess/chess.html
Many of these chess positions are either illegal or irrelevant. The number of legal and relevant positions is rather like 10^20.
No human can calculate that, but a quantum computer can possibly calculate from the initial position towards a table base.
After checkers was solved competitive play of it declined.
Your 10^45 number is close, your 10^20 number is off by 20 orders of magnitude . Even at that you are positing that only one in a million positions is "relevant" enough to be evaluated...
The 10^46.7 number of positions already discounts illegal positions, by the way.
Even after Checkers was "solved" nobody could play like the computer so the "solved" BS was just that... BS. Same goes for Chess 🙄 All playable games should end in a draw with best play... If not....why would we play?
#9
The 10^45.888 is an upper bound and it does not exclude all illegal positions. Except for obvious cases it is hard to decide if a position is legal or not. Apart from that many positions are legal but irrelevant like 4 light square bishops versus 3 rooks.
#10
Connect Four is a forced win for the player that starts. All competition in Connect Four came to a halt once it was solved. After checkers was solved many checkers and draughts players quit and a large number of them took up chess or go. Also competition in Nine Men's Morris came to a halt once it was solved.

#9
The 10^45.888 is an upper bound and it does not exclude all illegal positions. Except for obvious cases it is hard to decide if a position is legal or not. Apart from that many positions are legal but irrelevant like 4 light square bishops versus 3 rooks.
#10
Connect Four is a forced win for the player that starts. All competition in Connect Four came to a halt once it was solved. After checkers was solved many checkers and draughts players quit and a large number of them took up chess or go. Also competition in Nine Men's Morris came to a halt once it was solved.
Your 10^20 number is wildly off no matter how you spin it...just admit that you made the rookie mistake of thinking 10^20 was almost half of 10^45 and call it a day ...

#14
In Connect Four people can also memorise the optimal play.
In chess top grandmasters even miss in 7 men table base positions, so they cannot remember the solution. However, if some openings like King's Gambit or Dutch Defence are proven to lose by force, then nobody would play those any more. Also if chess is proven to be a draw, then extravagant opening moves like 1 c3 may be a draw just the same and may see more play.
As is proven by this Chess Openings database here
https://www.365chess.com/opening.php