Chess will never be solved, here's why

#3221
1 g4 might lose by force.
#3223
There are many Mr Boastalot here on this forum, but none has the scientific (MSc. Eng., almost PhD. Eng.) and chess credentials (GM, World Champion 65+, author of theory books) of Sveshnikov.

Hypotheses and jumps to conclusions. Just explain why do you think those objections are wrong and move on.

I said it's impossible to say before a weak solution has been determined, post(2). Maybe it's you who doesn't read!

I said that your calculation of the error rate per move is flawed, starting from the unproven assumption that the game value is a draw and then using it to prevent the exploration of a horrible number of lines that could disprove the assumption itself, post(1).

I'm not sure about that, but anyway we do not to appeal to authorities, do we? Nonetheless, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

#3226

I said that (a) chess is a draw and (b) 126 games with 0 errors, 9 games with 1 error and 1 game with 2 errors are the only way to explain the data: 127 draws, 6 white wins, 3 black wins.
You only say: "it's impossible to say before a weak solution has been determined"
So you dodge the question and implicitly acknowledge the correctness of my claims.
I say no other explanation is possible. If you dispute that, then come up with an explanation:
Game theoretic value? Number of games with 0, 1, 2, 3... errors?
I say draw, 126 - 9 - 1

"we do not to appeal to authorities" ++ No, but when one of the world leading analysts said something about chess analysis, then people should at least consider it instead of dismissing it on no grounds at all. Weakly solving chess is the ultimate chess analysis.

Hi, we do agree that experiments cannot give 100% of certainity about what we measure (is it the real value of that physical quantity? Does it even correspond to reality – phenomenon or noumenon?) Even if we do accept these as the best proofs we can get, they are usually obtained after statistical hypothesis testing, which is based on theories already targeted by an avalanche of criticism. In our case, if we assume that the game is a draw, the evidence does not support very well the null hypothesis (the hypothesis that wins are due only to chance), because White wins more than Black,  but there are other problems: do players draw because perfect players cannot get more than that, when they confront other perfect players, or they draw because they do not know how to win? Are better players closer to perfection, or do they play less random, but also more biased moves? Using Bayesian inference, as alternative to statistical tests, does not solve these problems.

The main point is that @tygxc claims that the assumption of the game-theoretic value as a draw makes it possible to cut away a priori an enormous amount of lines, which in fact might disprove the assumption itself; such "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

No, I said that it's impossible to establish the number of errors per game from the fact that most of them, at high level, are draws. Read my previous post.

Are you kidding me? from post(1): "the increasing draw rate in games between engines of the same strength, and in particular in autoplay, can be explained with the increasing stability of the evaluation functions, both because of the introduction of neural networks, and because the evaluations become (on average) more stable with depth. For this reasons it becomes more and more difficult to overcome an opponent of the same strength, but that does not mean that the game value is a draw. I think that if the increasing drawing rate depended on the game-theoretic value, we should not see the playing strength and ratings of the top engines increase at the current rate."

My explanation is independent from the game-theoretic value and the number of errors per game, errors which obviously will be known only after a weak solution, as you yourself admitted in another post(8):

I think there is no basis even for an estimation.

I did not dismiss what Sveshnikov said on "solving" chess. Indeed, I have probably considered it even too much. It's you, who dismiss what all the others (experts or not) say about the topic.

His arguments are far more cogent and coherent than yours.  Stay in your own lane.  Plenty to fix there.

Yes, he ignores objections (even subjective ones) that he doesn't know how to challenge, denying they have even been raised. He is attempting an argumentum ad nauseam. Maybe we can ask the moderators to just close the thread in light of that?

#2329
"About 20 people have provided various arguments."
1 Sveshnikov > 20 weak players

#3237
"ask the moderators to just close the thread"
++ We cannot handle the truth, so let us forbid to talk about it.
Let Galileo swear that the Earth does not revolve around the Sun.

There is a solution to Chess. Heres why:

Chess has many limiting rules that makes its largest possible moves a finite number therefore solvable and they are:

1. Time constraint

2. 3 move repetition

and 3. 50 move rule

'Time constraint' is apparently never used in the table base projects and almost never used in discussions about solving chess.
The other two things are used - but so far in these discussions its my humble opinion that 3-fold and 50 move rules have been presented insistently and technically rather than with perspective.
Arguments about terminology rather than trying to present those factors generically.
Regarding any project to 'solve' chess ... it should be recognized there are multiple projects within the bigger project.
Most of the posts are reactions to or defenses of an invalid '5 years to solve' because of 'nodes' and Sveshnikov and arbitrarily cutting the number of positions to be solved to less than a quintillionth of its value.
Having said that though - this being a chess site means that the marketing is directed towards clients who 'have time'.  

ty

@tygxc, how much money the project would require?

#3243
rental for 5 years of 3 cloud engines of 10^9 nodes/s each as modern computers plus 3 (ICCF) grandmasters as good assistants cost a few million $.
The most feasible is probably to run a pre-project for just 1 ECO code.
Checkers and Losing Chess have been solved by hobbyists using desktop computers.
Chess requires more.

A little vague, how many millions? Schaeffer is an hobbyst to you?

#3245
The rental fee for the engines is a matter of negociation.
IBM or Google might offer a discount in exchange for publicity.
Likewise the compensation for the good assistants. Some might do it for free out of interest, some might want to receive a decent pay so as to earn their cost of living.
I estimate like 3 million $ would do.

this topic is going off topic for sure.. as i said this is the conclusion:-it does not matter whether it gets solved or not.. all i matter that its an great BOARD AND MIND AND BRAIN game..BY ME ON CHESS

@tygxc, Schaeffer is an hobbyst, to you? How much for just one ECO code?

#3248
"Schaeffer is an hobbyst"
He is a professional computer scientist, but the 16 years of solving checkers were not his job, but rather some personal side-project, i.e. hobby.
The people that solved Losing Chess were professional mathematicians, but in their paper they describe themselves as hobbyists, so solving Losing Chess was a hobby to them.

"How much for just one ECO code?"
++ I estimate $100,000 for 1 ECO code. I suspect Carlsen, Nepo, Caruana, Karjakin and their teams of grandmasters and cloud engines already have solved a few ECO codes (Petrov, Berlin, Marshall, Sveshnikov) during their months of match preparation, but they obviously keep that to themselves. That is also why Sveshnikov published his analysis of B33 in 1988: as he was diagnosed with 3rd stage cancer he realised his ambitions as a professional player were over and so he could just as well publish his findings.

If you say so... Anyway thank you for your answer about the cost.

About your idea of project, I insisted so much on the game-theoretic value of the game, because it is crucial for your theory. As I said the percentage of drawn games is not a sufficiently strong evidence to assume that the game-theoretic value is a draw. More importantly, it is not sufficient to give a reliable estimation of the error rate per move. To do that, you start from the assumption that errors are statistically independent... Now, let's say that an engine is playing in autoplay, it is White's turn at move n of the game and the engine analyzes the position P, reaching depth d; then it plays a move M which is a mistake, and turns a draw into a loss for White. After that, the engine takes Black and analyzes the new position P₁ at depth d (on average). It already analyzed the line starting from P₁ in the previous turn, but now one other ply has been played; nonetheless, with some approximation we can say that reaching depth d at plycount 2n-1, gives for the line the same evaluation as depth d+1 at plycount 2(n-1) and it is well known that the difference between an evalutation at depth d and one at depth d+1 is on average smaller and smaller, the larger d. That means that very likely an engine does not recognize at plycount 2n-1 an error made at plycount 2(n-1). Most of the times these mistakes can be exploited only playing a very precise move, hence the engine will likely play another wrong move, that does not exploit the error, when the evaluation is still wrong. Even if the engine is lucky and play the right move at plycount 2n-1, it would face the same problem at plycount 2n+1, 2n+3... So if an engine makes a mistake in autoplay, likely with the other colour it will very soon make another mistake that will rebalance the game. That's why, even in the case that engines are becoming more accurate and the game value is a draw, it is still not possible to say whether they make 0, 2, 4, 6 or more errors, in general: they are not statistically independent.

You used simple maths to do your calculations, yet you think we cannot understand it. Did Tromp make such calculations to estimate the error rate per move? If that's not the case, do you think he too is not capable enough to conceive those calculations and arrive to your very conclusion?