LoL.
Chess tree project

I've heard mention of distrubuted computing projects to try and do something similar, but I'm not sure if they ever got off the ground.
And of course there are people working on end-game tablebases, which does essentially the same thing, but starts from the other end, making a database of endgames. Currently, there is a tablebase available for all positions with 6 pieces (including kings) or less. They are working on one which would handle all positions with 7 pieces or less, with a projected completion in 2015. Every time you add one more piece to the mix, the number of possibilities grows by a huge amount, and the game starts with 32 pieces, so it's not anywhere close to solving chess.

I already have all the first 4 moves down but my floor is out of space.
I think the screensaver idea from SETI was really good and would work with this too. An accompanying engine could easily evaluate the resulting positions and if the evaluations are clearly negative in all branches, an expert could be invited to verify the position was obviously won, sparing unnecessary computing.
Hey chess.com, there's an idea for you ... give us a screensaver? Imagine the publicity.
Is that SETI project still going on? No aliens yet?

That SETI project was very popular, and they actually had a lot more processing power available than needed. Most people's SETI@Home projects were just rechecking data that had been checked and verified many times. (For what it's worth using a screensaver version is about the least efficient way you can do it. Most computers spend about 90% of their cycles doing a "no-op" (no operation) because they don't have anything important to do. Most distributed computing projects don't use a screensaver, they just run constantly at a low priority, so they can soak up all those otherwise unused computing cycles.)
But that's just one popular distributed computing project. There are many others.
One that would likely interest the people here is called Chess960@home.

this brute-force approach is supposed to be computationally explosive, but has anyone started on it anyway, just for the heck of it? It could easily harness the computing power of millions of home PCs all over the world
I'm afraid you would need to contact every inteligent species who might be using computers or similar machines in every corner of the universe asking for their help and send trillions of screensavers, and I believe such a huge task would remain unfinished by the end of universe. But hey, let's start it anyway :)

Hell yeah, I would like the mates my screensaver discovers to be named after me.
Ironically, I think it may have been the handsome screensaver that made the SETI project popular, but that's a pretty wild list of projects there Baldr, thanks.

I'm really confused about something. Isn't it true that if we sucsessfuly do this then chess will be solved- and isn't this what everyone is so afraid of? If this is the case, then why are we putting so much effort into solving chess?

I don't think anyone is really afraid of chess being solved. It's just a game? They can make the board bigger and add new pieces if they like. Personally, I would like to know who wins with perfect play on both sides. Most people guess a draw, but it's possible that one side is in zugzwang at the start, so it could even be black that wins the perfect game. What a blast. Chess is at bottom 100% tactics. We need "strategy" only because we can't compute all the moves.

I don't think people would stop playing chess if computers had a 32 piece tablebase. I wouldn't.
Computers can beat me as it is, and there isn't any question about that. So can most chess players. I still enjoy playing.
And yes, even if chess was a solved game (which isn't likely to happen in the next couple of generations), it would be trivial to make it more difficut.
Is there an on-going project anywhere to construct an exhaustive chess tree starting from move 1, going through all possible replies, move by move, until checkmate is reached (by either side), or else a draw? I know this brute-force approach is supposed to be computationally explosive, but has anyone started on it anyway, just for the heck of it? It could easily harness the computing power of millions of home PCs all over the world, distributing the workload, e.g., in the form of a screensaver, like the SETI screensaver which used to be available - it was fun participating in that. I would join this chess tree project if it was available. Any such thing around? Otherwise, I nominate, um, chess.com to start this project. It should be relatively easy to set up?