#3911
"The lines that no one has explored down to the tablebases yet, are unkown elements."
++ Many positions with more men than 7 are known draws or losses as well.
Many endgames with opposite colored bishops are known draws.
Many positions with huge material differences like a queen up are known wins.
"how do we know that the positions in S are draws?"
++ For all positions of 7 men or less and even some positions with 8 men it is known from the table base. For some endgames like opposite colored bishops it is known from analysis. For some middlegame positions with huge imbalance it is known from experience and from logic.
"you have no reason to believe that there will ever be a reliable proof." ++ A matter of money.
"All analyses will be impossible to check." ++ And for Checkers and Losing Chess?
"To me the only real proof is an exhaustive one" ++ Connect Four has been solved independently in two different ways: an exhaustive one by Allen and a set of 7 rules by Allis.
I believe weakly solving chess will be a combination of both.
"If one million mathematicians do all agree that T is a theorem, they might all be mistaken."
++ This has been heavily debated for the Four Color Theorem, but in the end it was agreed.
"A statement like "chess is a draw because of the equalizing tendency" really cannot be considered scientific, or nearly as reliable as a computer-assisted proof by exhaustion."
++ That is vague.
However: white is 1 tempo up, experience shows 3 tempi are worth 1 pawn, 1 pawn is enough to win a game by queening it, 1 tempo is not enough to win, makes sense.
Also: 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6 white is a bishop down. A bishop is worth 3 pawns. A bishop is enough to win. 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6 is a win for black. That is without an exhaustive calculation to checkmate in all lines.
Do you think. The confidence of 1/80 will do?

