Chess Will Never Be Solved. Why?

“There can’t be too many of them.”

Yes @mpaetz  
but 'the guy' is set on his 'thing'.
His post #2 in the other thread was followed by over 3000 posts there - in which he simply kept repeating what he had said in post #2.
That doesn't mean those 3000 posts were all useless.
Because certain things came out.

Like the pathetic inability of Stockfish to recognize a draw in some particular positions which a C player or less could easily know are draws without much effort.
That glaring error of Stockfish wrongly assessing a win in those positions perhaps the most spectacular thing in the 3000 posts.
Will this thread be now subject to the next 2000 posts being reactions to a bogus five year claim ?
Very possibly.

You make @Optimissd look like a professor of mathematics.

The Nalimov tablebase generation procedure if completed for 32 men produces exactly the function you say doesn't exist, so long as you are talking about a version of basic rules chess that has a solution. A forward searching algorithm with a 0 leaf evaluation for non mate positions that terminates when no new positions are produced would produce an identical function.

We already have a solution of chess for any version of chess that has a solution, and have had since it was invented. The only question is, "Is it timely?".

The purported solution of draughts (checkers) apparently needs a couple of minutes to produce a move from any position because only a partial set of results is retained on disc, so this would not be timely in the context of a ten minute blitz game (if they do that in draughts)  - it's not a solution in that context. 

It is a fact that any of the versions of chess specified by FIDE (or anybody else) do not have solutions. 

The principal reason is that the versions of chess defined by FIDE all include the articles in the Basic Rules section and among those are.

1.4 The objective of each player is to place the opponent’s king ‘under attack’ in such a way that the opponent has no legal move.

and

 5.1.2 The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game.

There are no articles that restrict the point at which a player can resign, so neither player can achieve his objective without the cooperation of his opponent, since the starting position specified in art. 2.3 is not already checkmate.

If you ignore the objective and assume that a solution means providing a timely strategy for one or both players to achieve the best possible results in terms of win draw or loss, the FIDE laws don't specify how those are ordered. It is possible for both players to resign simultaneously, in which case according to art. 5.1.2 quoted above the result is a win for both players. Is that a better result for a player than to checkmate his opponent without a resignation or agreed draw?   

Before you offer to solve chess for us, you should first of all decide what you mean by "solve" and what you mean by "chess". I've pointed out to you many times the flaw in the definition of "solve" you keep quoting and also tried many times to pin you down on exactly what game you are trying to solve (solutions, weak or strong, to basic rules chess, competition rules chess, ICCF chess and TCEC chess will all be different - assuming the laws were fixed so they actually have solutions). 

For the present, you're just offering to gyre and gimble in the wabe so long as someone will advance you a few million to fund it.

Absolutely not a fact.

Whoever first introduced the fifty move rule (Ruy López?) probably thought that. I would guess he'd looked at the KBNK endgame, decided it needed about 33 moves and added 50% for good luck and believed that would cover all situations. 

No doubt he was regarded as a pretty good player, but couldn't conceive that if you add just three more pieces to the board you get the tablebase mate in 549 that requires at least 130 moves without a pawn move or capture (tablebases don't currently tell you exactly how many).

In fact he changed it into two different games with two different solutions. We know that the solutions are different for many situations with a small number of men. Solutions with a larger number of men will also already be changed if only because they have to take account of possible positions with a smaller number of men they can reach - but who can seriously doubt that even larger phases will occur with another three men added, for example.

The triple repetition rule will not change any solution.

It will change the necessary approaches to arriving at a solution. It will for example mean that positions with the same diagram and side to move that are arrived at by different sequences of moves don't necessarily have the same theoretical outcome, so @tygxc's habit of equating diagrams with nodes in his search space is (vastly) incorrect.

The tablebase generation algorithms bypass the problem of repetition by associating each position with the corresponding diagram and side to move together with an integer representing the distance to some objective that eventually terminates in mate. Each diagram and side to move is assigned only one distance to the objective so repetitions cannot occur.

'Nodes' would be wrong and misleading anyway.

And @MARattigan is back !  Here !
It was he who posted about the severe weakness in Stockfish in the other forum.  

FIDE define more than one game and people play all of them.

Because FIDE have not done an excellent job in formulating the laws, none of them can be solved. That is just laziness on the part of FIDE. With a more careful formulation of the laws the basic rules game as well as the basic rules game prior to 2017 (which included the 50 move and triple repetition rules) would each have (strong) solutions. (The competition rules games would need some caveats.)

What you are saying, if I understand you correctly is that you consider the 50 move rule and possibly also the triple repetition rules as artificial constraints. In the former case I'm definitely  inclined to agree. But I wouldn't say there's no point in discussing chess with those rules in force because people do play such games. (In fact if you play an engine you probably don't have much choice.)

The idea of reapplying the constraints is too simplistic. The solutions have to be built taking account of those constraints.

The Nalimov tablebases solve the basic rules game for positions with seven men or less but could lead you into dropping a half point if the rules are in force. If an engine just plays Nalimov optimal moves it can draw under the 50 move rule even when a different sequence of Nalimov optimal moves would have avoided that. In some cases no sequence of Nalimov optimal moves  avoids the 50 move rule, but the position can still be won with the 50 move rule in effect. E.g.

Nalimov thinks this is mate in 85 against any defence, but he doesn't take into account the 50 move rule and would only draw whatever recommended moves the engine uses. It actually needs 108 moves against most obstinate defence with the 50 move rule in effect. The moves required cannot be retrieved from the Nalimov tablebases.

The Syzygy tablebases which are built with the 50 move rule assumed would effect the mate. (A drawback is that it would take at least 128 moves against some defences.)

@Optimissed

Some people would strongly argue that "chess" is a game that includes a 50 move rule.

The fact is a game with the rule and a game without are two different games, certainly with different strong solutions and possibly with no common weak solution.

Which you think should be solved first is a matter of personal choice, but solving one doesn't necessarily help with solving the other.

#195
"a game with the rule and a game without are two different games"
++ No they are not. The 50-moves rule never gets involved in positions > 7 men and in high level games, none at all in ICCF WC games. A rule that is not involved makes no difference.

#193
"Why cannot someone understand what virtually everyone is telling him?" 
++ Everyone was telling Galileo that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

It does. They revolve around each other.

To see that the Sun revolves around the Earth hardly needs any special measurements, but I'm sure that you would have no difficulty believing it doesn't.

@Optimissed

If the point you were trying to make in the post to which I responded was that the 50 move rule has no bearing on a potential analysis of basic rules chess which has no such rule, it's a point that hardly seems worth making.

If on the other hand you are trying to dictate that we are to consider "chess" in the OP's question to mean only chess without the 50 move rule then on yer bike. Other people in this and related  threads have expressed the contrary view.

I see no reason not to consider both variants - as the successful analyses with a limited number of men (tablebases) already do. It should be understood that the analyses may be distinct (as the tablebases already are).

A full set of Syzygy tablebases up to 32 men would serve as a weak solution of both variants, but the generation of such with the algorithm so far used is impractical and no alternative practical algorithm has been proposed.

(Actually no practical algorithm has been proposed for any weak solution of either game with current technology, but @tygxc apparently remains to be convinced.) 

novelties?

like all the varioations?

Have you thought about the storage requirements to keep track of repetitions?

I think rather a lot of people disagreed with him, at least on other threads. He's very prolific, so it becomes a bit tedious pointing out he's talking crap every time he does it.

Quote:
" "Positions" is incorrect. Doesn't work because each position must be analysed as a continuing game. Therefore, games must be analysed. It's a very simple matter to cut out all lines with such repetition. "
"must be analyzed as a continuing game"
That's only the opinion of the quoted poster and is actually invalid.
Assigned only to protect previous 'moves' ?

Positions are primary.  
To have a project - it needs to be position based.
For example - the endgame tablebases projects.
Arguments about rejecting positions and the semantics of positions versus moves aren't going anywhere either.   And they haven't.
Won position - drawn position - checkmate position - starting position and so on.
WIthout a position to work with and to declare on and to analyze then there's nothing to do.  Positions are primary.  Moves need positions not the other way around.
(maybe whoever will now tactically strawman that I'm rejecting moves - which is not the case)

@MARattigan
We can talk around the personalizations. 
And around the '5 years' spam too.
Those two are older than you.
You're the best poster - so why be heavily drawn in to that stuff?
We can have our posts be about the subject - not just about ourselves.

Yes. One occasion I don't think you're talking crap.