Chess will never be solved, here's why

Another possiblity is - a winning move is found for white on move 1.  
It seems so wildly unlikely though.
The whole history of chess contradicts it !  

Bobby Fischer is one of those who said something like:
"If neither player makes a mistake the game ends in a draw".
The percentage of draws is higher in GM chess.

But were all those draws 'perfect' ?
Better?  "If neither player makes a big enough mistake the game ends in a draw"

#361
Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Spassky, Fischer, Kasparov, Kramnik all said the same: chess is a draw.
The AlphaZero games show the same: 97% draw rate and more time = more draws.
Also ICCF has 97% draws
Also higher rating = more draws.
A game without mistakes ends in a draw.
A decisive game contains at least 1 mistake.

'A decisive game contains at least one mistake'.
In draws - several things could happen - and I"m not talking about types of draws at the end.
Somebody 'throws away the win'.
Or both players actually made at least one losing move ... but are all GM draws computer-checked to see if they did?  I don't know.  
Or if they are - maybe such activity isn't published much.  People are more interested in wins.  

At lower levels - are moves that are result-decisive to GM games or master games useful to much lesser players for study purposes ?
I would say mostly - no.  Especially the more positional losses or win-throwaways.  With 'positional' so often involved in GM play.  
They would learn much more by studying blatant tactical errors at the lower levels.  Or looking at tactics problems that isolate key ideas with unique decisive moves.   

Regarding 'pattern recognition' - although a lot of masters recommend it - I think that's too much like memorization.
Understanding works better than memorization and recognition.
I"ve seen this over and over in tactics problems - 
players blunder because they go by 'recognition' instead of really looking.
And assign 'themes' instead of detecting motifs and tactics.
Then the wrong 'calculations' are done after that. 

In so many of the 50,000 tactics problems on the site - which are now called 'puzzles' ...  the problems with the low pass rates beat players because they misinterpret the positions - not because of depth nor ignorance of 'themes and patterns'.
In the discussion forums underneath each problem - this is confirmed zillions of times.  

Much better is using a 'checklist'.  Including creating one's own.
As for players 'learning in different ways' ...
I think that's obviously going to happen.  
Plus many players don't really care about improvement anyway ... 
Why should they?  There's the game - and the intricacies and suprises and novelties - and the involvement.  

This is why chess will never be solved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ2OphaN9ng

false logic ...  'instinctive so understanding '   doesn't follow.

As to why Some masters recommend 'pattern recognition' - that's a related but different subject.
There could be many factors.
1)  they have to recommend something or feel obligated or are getting paid  ...
2)   'pattern recognition' seems concrete, specific, simple enough 
3)   as in studying  'main line openings' their thinking can be like - something for the player to do.  They go over GM games - so 'do as I do'?  good instructors react to different students differently.  
4)  some kind of 'starting point' for the student to build on ...
5)  because the student will follow instructions

all of that might seem legitimate but do a very small percentage of players become masters because of 'instincts and talents' ?

Much more likely:  players who become masters are so much of the time already  strong players in their pre-teenage years because they had coaches who know about the major pitfalls and get them past them early on ... resulting in a steep learning curve - leading to master strength by adulthood.  'Talent' is icing on the cake.

You guys are just embarrassing yourselves. Not even the best mathematicians in the world know the answer to this and you guys keep arguing over this stupid topic for tens of thousands of posts over multiple threads. Just stop and everyone admit that they just don't know the answer to this, and that we will probably all be dead first before any conclusion can be reached.

Just stop. Walk away. Be bigger than this.

For adult players who are not fooling around with dreams of master strength and master Title and beyond - is it unrealistic to think they can't improve their game tremendously?
No.  
Tactics problems is one of the most efficient routes.  Because one is studying one's own mistakes.  As well as the mistakes of whoever played into the tactics in the first place.  Doesn't matter who it was who did.
Going over one's Own games to find one's own mistakes is good - but if its a Daily Game that can take most of a year ?  - is the learning curve going to be Steep ?
But even there - that could be better than looking at somebody else's master strength game - with the players in that game having  massive positional understanding plus insights into the most labyrinthine openings that most players never come anywhere close to ...

Who here claimed they know the answers ?
Also - should anybody be afraid of a subject ?
Feel they have to leave it to 'the authorities' ?
That's 'credentialism'.  It happens all the time in chat rooms ...
combined with 'its my links - articles - peer reviews versus your links - articles - peer reviews' - is often inane ...   
in such exchanges - 'logical evidence' is often ignored - even in the 'links'.

Maybe you're arguing or like to argue.  
You're probably correct that you're not using logic though.
  Lots of evidence of that.

Common occurrence:  putting logic in a 'science box' instead of realizing that it - and the word referring to it are there to serve us - not us to serve somebody's narrow interpretation of what it is - and not us to serve the word itself.
Happens constantly.  Semantics worship. 

@playerafar

#375

Here (and prior) we're talking about learning chess at a practical level not solving chess. It's a bit off topic.

Even when chess is solved, as it is for say KQKNN (where there are no rooks), the solution is not directly useful for learning the endgame. In this case (under basic rules)  the given solution is to memorise 601,109,052 winning positions and for each the corresponding number of plies to mate, then recall it it fifteen years later when you eventually get into the endgame and ensure that the moves you pick always take you to a position with a smaller number (with the same parity) of plies to mate. (Or, if you're drawing, not one of the positions you memorised.) 

Not altogether practical.

Hi @MARattigan
I like chatting with you - because you're capable of taking things less personally than some.  A number of people in this particular conversation are.  Capable in that way.
This branch of the conversation happened because the subject of draws came up - including grandmaster draws.  
And the relationship of draws to lack of mistakes.  Or lack of mistakes big enough to be exploitable in a practical way.  
And chess 'mistakes' and the study of them can be a big thing in everyday play among non-titled players.

Does the forum topic connect up to everyday chess ?
I would say yes.   

Personally I would say no, because I think everyday chess, at any level from beginner to grandmaster or engine, is probably  so far from perfect chess as to be unrecognisable. 

When I look at this from the position shown, all I can say is, "it's chess Jim but not as we know it".

(Quickest possible mate from the position shown against best defense. Taken from the Lomonosov site.)

Certainly an engine without a tablebase isn't going to touch it. They generally crap out before the mate depth gets to 50 in 5 man positions. 

If Haworth's law holds up to 32 men that could be around 3,000,000,000,000 moves instead of 549.

(I should say Haworth's law, as it's creator points out, is a conjecture rather than a law, and he doesn't use it to predict more than three extra men beyond those already solved. But I still think it's the best guess.)

Wow !  Move 508 Black hangs his rook !   

But that sequences of hundreds of moves might not be a forced win or 'frustration win' ...  could just be a draw ... and black blew it?
Yes I did read your post and the claim that it really is a forced win ...
If Black really did have to hang his rook ...
I promise to be Impressed !

It certainly looks like black either has to drop the Exchange there -
or drop his knight.   In the early moves I noticed that White didn't seem to want to knight-check.

Three trillion moves?  Lol !
I maintain though - that chess won't be solved anytime soon - even with 50 moves and 3 fold and clock stuff ignored.
Nikki is right I believe - that we 'don't know' ...
but that's one of the dynamics of the discussion !  

@playerafar

Black didn't blow it. His moves were also from the tablebase so they were perfect.

It's exactly the same as a mate in two puzzle, just it's mate in a few more.

Its impressive.  And even educational.
Demonstrating how difficult a position can be.  
I'd be curious to know as to at what point 'mate in' was announced ...
at the beginning ?   or maybe it wasn't ...
If it was stated here - I missed it.  

"At lower levels - are moves that are result-decisive to GM games or master games useful to much lesser players for study purposes ?
I would say mostly - no."
Stands.

Agreed.   
For some reason - a kind of 'athletic chess' was never developed.
Maybe its because you just can't see the board properly - if you're down there with the pieces.
Forest for the trees again - but on that - literally.  Phsically.  

When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.

...

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything ...

Perhaps I too should remain mute.