Chess will never be solved, here's why

@4108

"what happens when an imperfect player evaluates a position?"
++ Neither the player nor the engine evaluates the position,
the 7-men endgame table base evaluates the position and it is perfect.

You appear entirely delusional here. The large majority of the positions in those games have more than 8 pieces on the board. You claim "perfect" analysis of those positions. This includes (hilariously), the claim that every single opening played is known to be perfect.

These positions CANNOT BE FULLY ANALYSED to a tablebase. Doing the much simpler task for checkers required a great deal of computation. Doing this task for chess cannot be done at present.

"This happens in every decisive game." ++ Yes, every decisive game has some error.

These are decisive games played against the engines you are relying on for 100% reliable evaluations.

"All available sources of opinions are imperfect and can be completely wrong."
++ Yes that is true, but some absolute statements are sure not to be wrong.

That is as useful as the trading advice that some currencies are sure to go up. The question is which ones.
Certain endgames with opposite colored bishops are drawn.

True, but not relevant.
1 a4 cannot be a better move than 1 e4 or 1 d4

Your blunder (which I am qualified to point out) is in the jump from good bet to certainty.

Your reasoning is exactly the same as buying a lottery ticket and saying "I am certain this ticket will not win".

You are right to be confident. You are wrong to be certain.
1 e4 e5 2 Ba6 loses for white

A more extreme example of the same.

"It's a good bet that on an individual position, a very strong player is correct in their evaluation."
++ I even calculated that probability.

No, you did not. You estimated it from a sample. An estimate from a sample is NEVER 100% reliable. That is a statistical fact.
If you let the 10^9 nodes/s cloud engine run for 17 s, or a desktop for 4.7 hours, then the absolutely correct move will be among the top 4 engine moves in all but 1 case in 10^20.

I am not 100% sure if this is a wrong estimate or an uncertain estimate, but it is certainly not a hard fact.

You are right to be confident. You are wrong to be certain.
1 e4 e5 2 Ba6 loses for white

A more extreme example of the same.

Elroch, this is where you fall flat. Sticking to this principle of "we cannot know anything" is as wrong in principle as it's wrong in practice.

There is no excuse for believing I believe that. I have often directly contradicted it.

White giving away a bishop on the second move of a game loses by force and we can know that.

On the contrary, we know all facts that have been proved. One of those is that checkers is a draw with best play.

One could equally criticise you for your own certainty, after all. You condemn yourself, except in the eyes of a nihilist. Your own insistence that tygxc is wrong fails to your own principles. It's too much a mixed message.

It is true I have absolute faith in the rules of logic.

I also have great respect for the entirely different inductive reasoning of science, which leads to confidence but never absolute certainty.

But unlike some people such as tygxc , I never confuse the two.

You really ought to study my posts more. Thee only viable strategy lies in "playing the best moves". These definitions have been written by idiots. They have no significance for the solution of chess.

Not your argument, btickler and also, when either you or Elroch are concerned, that's very true. Statistically, that is.

Thought you said you didn't want me to troll you and yet here you are, trolling. No doubt you'll say I started it. Obviously, what Elroch said to me wasn't starting it, was it.

@4107

"The large majority of the positions in those games have more than 8 pieces on the board."
++ The whole point is to calculate until the 7-men endgame table base,
or a forced 3-fold repetition, or a sure draw like some opposite colored bishop ending.

It is ridiculous to suggest that the opening position can be exhaustively analysed to a puny 7 piece tablebase. Chess has over 10^29 times as many positions as are in this tablebase. That's over 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times as many.

The solution of checkers used a tablebase that was relatively a lot larger (in terms of log complexity)

"These are decisive games played against the engines you are relying on"
++ No, I do not rely on any decisive games, I rely on drawn games only.

Perhaps you are unaware, chess engines play chess against each other, and occasionally they lose. Glibly saying a little more time will make them unbeatable is not good enough for several reasons obvious to several of us.

Finding the best moves in reasonable positions, since there's no real point in looking at random positions or those where one player has played so badly that they're obviously losing. For instance, perhaps by having played 1. e4 e5 2. Ba6, which Elroch seems to think may not be losing for white. Seems that tygxc and he make a wonderful pair. So similar in so many ways.

No, I'm going the other way and becoming less tolerant of bad manners by others. If you want me to behave nicely after a narcissist calls me a narcissist because he can't actually think of a refutation of my post (because there isn't one) well I jolly well shan't, so there!I think that a lot of people here think that game theory consists of the strategy of games. It doesn't.

@4131
 "don't view results as definitely true based on inductive reasoning"

++ Apart from expert opinions and inductive reasoning based on AlphaZero, TCEC, ICCF, there is also deductive reasoning.
1 pawn is enough to win: by queening it.

Go on then.

1 tempo is not enough to win: you cannot queen a tempo.

Like here?

I suppose the same must apply to a rook. You can't queen that either.

1 bishop is enough to win: trade it for a pawn.

Go on then.

I even provided proof that 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6 is a forced checkmate in 82. @3936 

Fascinating.

I managed to use your proof to show the starting position is a forced checkmate for Black in 2.

"So the starting position is a forced checkmate in 2 moves.
But what if white plays differently?
Then white loses in a different way."

So we can put this thread to bed. Who would have thought it?

I'm mostly tolerant of your trolling because I'm aware its due to something you can't control.

Again...you aren't tolerant.  Nor are you "aware" of anything about me.

You know by now I don't really rate your criticisms of what I write as worthy of being taken seriously. That's just my opinion, though. You might be able to change it by intelligently addressing

You always speak as if I should have some desire to change your mind.  It's never about that.  It's about mitigating your collateral damage.

the reasons why I maintain that you and others are conflating game theory with solving chess and that's the main reason you stick to the ridiculous definitions which include "semi-weak" solutions, etc. It's my opinion that no-one here is capable of thinking very clearly. Anyone who could, would get what I'm talking about but you don't. That's your problem, in the plural.

It's still you conflating the two (which belies the thinking clearly statement).  Game theory is used in many areas to model behavioral interactions.  Combinatorial game theory is closer to the mark, but solving chess is not directly dependent on either.

It's still no excuse for your trolling. It's a reaction to it, as a matter of fact.

Your consistent reaction to my "trolling" (i.e. observations/recounting of your own behaviors) is due to your credence of/in/with my observations, your fear of them, and your hope of deflecting others from also seeing them clearly.  If you truly gave my opinion no mind, you would not respond past a certain point.

I don't like to say this, of course, but here here goes.

I'm sure the sun will rise tomorrow but I can't demonstrate it today.
I'm sure you're a bit thick but I can't demonstrate it because you have control over what you write.

No, it isn't a pretence and also, you aren't "anyone", as can be deduced from your choosing to continue with your efforts to prove that your efforts aren't in vain.

OK try this. You and Elroch seem to be united in the idea that, although we know that
1.d4 d5
2. Ba6 
loses for white ... that is, it will be a forced loss, anyone who claims it to be a forced loss isn't correct, because "how do we know since it hasn't been proven".

Firstly, I'm completely confident that it has been analysed to a forced win for black but the forcing sequence wasn't recorded because there are actually millions of forcing sequences, each one resulting in a win for black.

This insistence that it hasn't been "proven" is infantile, because of course it will have been done by someone and we can rest assured that it no forced win had been found, out of the millions of different lines available, we'd know about it.

I won't comment about chess ability because I understand that the two of you are trying to make a point, however puerile. I will explain this, however. Whether or not one might choose to assert that it's a forced win isn't down to knowledge but to personality type. The fact that neither you nor Elroch have pointed that out points to the high probability that neither of you have managed to work that out.

No-one is more right than the other in choosing to assert or not to assert that it's a win for black. Both of you, however, fall into error by asserting that someone else is wrong to do so.

@Optimissed

Suggest you try playing Black from the position against SF15 with tournament time controls and post your win. Should happen first go if you know in any useful sense that it's a win.

Of course SF15 is light years from perfect, but it would be a start.