Chess Will Never Be Solved. Why?

@btickler
but what's often a mystery in these situations is whether whoever believes his own nonsense.
My theory is that they oscillate through degrees of awareness versus denial.

Regarding Haworth's law - I was able to bring it up on the net using @MARattigan 's hyperlink.
But it only appears fully - in pdf format.
Which is not exactly user-friendly to work with.
I refuse to use Word or Excel or PowerPoint ...
so I tried some pdf editor chrome extensions -
so as to get some copy/paste going with simple plain text.
No go.  Same user-unfriendly.
When I removed the last editor from chrome - they wanted to know why so I told them.

But - Haworth's law isn't really a law - and it arises from 'Moore's Law' which apparently isn't a 'law' either.
That doesn't mean they don't have some validity - nor that they do.
It would be nice to get them posted here.
Various people here - well it would be super-easy for them to do so I imagine.

It's worth repeating that Shveshnikov made the claim (solving chess in 5 years) in 2007

https://e3e5.com/article.php?id=1467

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In the same interview he said:

"Soon all openings will be given exact scores, and if the variant is correct, it will lead to a technical endgame in which a draw will be achieved with accurate defense."

Again, this was said 15 years ago.

#371
"you're reducing 10^44 to 10^32 to 10^19 to 10^17 by removing "invalid positions" based on move orders?"
++ No, the reduction from 10^44 to 10^32 is because of sensible positions, positions that can arise from a game with > 50% accuracy.
Non sensible positions are not reached when calculating properly.
The reduction from 10^32 to 10^19 is because of reachability.
E.g. when analysing 1 e4 no position with a white pawn on e2 is ever reached.
The reduction from 10^19 to 10^17 is because of relevance.
E.g. if 1 e4 c5 draws, then it is not relevant if 1 e4 c5 draws as well or not.

"Weren't those eliminated already when going from 10^120 possible games with permutation of moves to 10^44 unique positions" ++ No, and there are much more than 10^120 possible games because chess has so many transpositions.

"Are you double counting?"
++ No.
Many legal positions are not visited because they are not sensible.
Many sensible positions are not visited because they are not reachable.
Many reachable positions are not visited because they are not relevant.

None of those same things repeated over and over means 10^17 would be valid.
 Nor will two crosses in front of phrases make anything valid either.
How does one talk to a 'flat earth' person ?   There's certainly no reasoning.

It's also worth noting that in every year containing a world championship match, top GMs hire top assistants, and use powerful computers, motivated by earning both the largest paycheck of their career and the highest title of their profession.

And yet, 15 years later, chess is not close to being solved.

"Reachability" is based on move order.  If your premise is that you can bridge to tablebases from the opening using Stockfish, then you will have to traverse all move orders because that's how Stockfish analyzes...it sounds like you won't even be using unique positions in your process? 

If not, you will have to bridge to a much larger number...the number of possible chess games minus the paltry (in a relative sense) number of entries in a...let's generously call it a 9 man tablebase, since you have 5 years to play with by your reckoning.  So, why are you reducing from 10^44 in the first place?

#379

"It's also worth noting that in every year containing a world championship match, top GMs hire top assistants, and use powerful computers, motivated by earning both the largest paycheck of their career and the highest title of their profession.
And yet, 15 years later, chess is not close to being solved."

++ Oh yes. From the past Classical World Championships Carlsen - Karjakin, Carlsen - Caruana, and Carlsen - Nepo it becomes clear that white has nothing, neither with 1 e4, 1 d4, or 1 c4 and that 1 e4 c5 (Carlsen), 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 (Carlsen), as well as 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nf6 (Caruana & Nepo) draw.
The few decisive games come from clear human errors due to fatigue or time trouble.

Sveshnikov started analysing his Sveshnikov Variation B33 in 1962.
He claimed "I practically exhausted this variation" in 1988. So in 26 years he solved B33 without any help, engines, or table bases. That makes it plausible that in 5 years with modern computers and good assistants he could have weakly solved chess.

Which opening has been given an "exact score" as Shveshnikov claimed?

WCC matches have always had tons of draws. You could have claimed in 1920 that "White gets nothing."

Lol.  There's no way he "exhaustively" analyzed any ECO by hand all the way to a draw without just deciding to eliminate 99% + who-even-knows-how-many-more .9s of the possible moves.  I mean, I am sure *he* felt exhausted ...

Another gigantic and invalid leap
A claim of 'I practically exhausted' being equated with " he 'solved' B33 "
It doesn't follow at all.
Somebody says " I climbed Everest and Lohtse and Mount Vinson and Mount McKinley " in one day - means that that person did so ??
What do we call this kind of Snake Oil ??

Mixing illogic with math.  

#382
Sveshnikov, Marshall, Petrov have been given the exact score of a draw.
Dutch, Alekhine, Chigorin, King's Gambit have been given the exact score of a loss.

#383
1921: 10 draws, 4 decisive games
1927: 25 draws, 9 decisive games
2016: 10 draws, 2 decisive games
2018: 12 draws, 0 decisive games
2021: 7 draws, 4 decisive games, all attributable to clear human errors

Yesterday was Wednesday - doesn't mean tomorrow is Sunday.
But that general tactic is used very much - arguing that it is.

#384
"Since that time only some details have been developed, without introducing anything particularly new: the evaluations of the main lines have hardly changed. I described everything in such detail, that it became hard playing 5...e5 even against first category players." - Sveshnikov
"I assure you that neither Kasparov nor Carlsen will refute my openings." - Sveshnikov
Sveshnikov got 3rd stage cancer in 1984 so from then on he mainly worked as an analyst.
In 2017 he became World Champion 65+.

Argument by credentials.  

I guess if Mike Tyson says Twinkies are good for you - 
then it must be true ?

++ No, that is an erroneous conclusion of you.

I'm quite aware it's erroneous. That's because I'm using your reasoning. (If you want to talk to the Mad Hatter you have to go down the rabbit hole.)

There is no difference between legal positions and a position reachable from the starting position (which is the position you are claiming you will weakly solve) if you accept FIDE's definition of legal position.

3.10.3 A position is illegal when it cannot have been reached by any series of legal moves.

You manage to reason that the latter constitute only 1/10000000000000 part of the former. I was just suggesting a way you might cut them down to 0 with the same approach and save the overhead of your supercomputer leases.

#391
"There is no difference between legal positions and a position reachable from the starting position "
++ Yes, that is right. But there are many, many positions that become unreachable in the course of solving chess. Say cloud engine E analyses 1 e4 and cloud engine D analyses 1 d4.
Cloud engine E will not ever reach a position with a white pawn on e2.
Cloud engine D will not ever reach a position with a white pawn on d2.
Each pawn move and each capture renders huge numbers of positions unreachable.
Each king move renders all positions with castling flags unreachable.

#392

Not disputing that. Each cloud engine will start with a reduced set of reachable positions.

That doesn't change the total number of reachable (i.e. legal) positions.

Any progress with the pseudocode I mentioned here, by the way?