Chess will never be solved, here's why

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SpaceVoidSuperEvil

What do you really mean by solving chess?
Are you trying to solve it like a puzzle, putting the pieces together?

Are you trying to find out which move is the most accurate and will guarantee no disadvantage and improve your position as much as it can?

Actually, if you refer to the second question, then chess will not be fun anymore.

If each side cancels out each other's moves, it will be a draw repeatedly like tic tac toe games.

Of course, it could also be a game in which one position is always guaranteed to win.

 

Elroch
Optimissed wrote:
Elroch wrote:

All theorems applying to this class of games apply to chess.


In particular, you have condemned anyone who uses inductive thinking in this matter and yet what is that but a glaring example of inductive thinking, which is entirely inappropriate, as you yourself have pointed out?

I am bemused how you could think that is any sort of example of inductive thinking. It simply isn't.

In mathematics and related subjects there are theorems which start with a set of axioms and end with a proposition. They say that when the set of axioms is true, the proposition is true.  I stated that chess satisfies a certain set of axioms defining a class of games, and thus all theorems that can be proven from those axioms are true about chess.

None of this involves induction: it is a very fundamental fact about deductive knowledge in general. It could itself be proven in a formal manner, as a theorem of mathematical logic.

DiogenesDue
SpaceVoidSuperEvil wrote:

What do you really mean by solving chess?
Are you trying to solve it like a puzzle, putting the pieces together?

Are you trying to find out which move is the most accurate and will guarantee no disadvantage and improve your position as much as it can?

Actually, if you refer to the second question, then chess will not be fun anymore.

If each side cancels out each other's moves, it will be a draw repeatedly like tic tac toe games.

Of course, it could also be a game in which one position is always guaranteed to win.

Solving chess, as for solving any game, is already defined.  There's no ambiguity, choice or interpretation involved.

MARattigan
SpaceVoidSuperEvil wrote:

What do you really mean by solving chess?
Are you trying to solve it like a puzzle, putting the pieces together?

Are you trying to find out which move is the most accurate and will guarantee no disadvantage and improve your position as much as it can?

Actually, if you refer to the second question, then chess will not be fun anymore.

If each side cancels out each other's moves, it will be a draw repeatedly like tic tac toe games.

Of course, it could also be a game in which one position is always guaranteed to win.

 

It is actually a good question, I'll post a fuller answer later.

For the present, you say

Are you trying to find out which move is the most accurate and will guarantee no disadvantage and improve your position as much as it can?

No.

Accuracy is not generally required in chess. If you take forty nine moves to mate with king and queen against a king, the rules don't reward you any less than if you do it in the minimum number of moves (so long as you don't run out of time, but that, together with the tide, can wait till I post a fuller answer).

Also, you cannot make a move that theoretically improves your position; only your opponent can do that. 

 

 

SpaceVoidSuperEvil
MARattigan wrote:
SpaceVoidSuperEvil wrote:

What do you really mean by solving chess?
Are you trying to solve it like a puzzle, putting the pieces together?

Are you trying to find out which move is the most accurate and will guarantee no disadvantage and improve your position as much as it can?

Actually, if you refer to the second question, then chess will not be fun anymore.

If each side cancels out each other's moves, it will be a draw repeatedly like tic tac toe games.

Of course, it could also be a game in which one position is always guaranteed to win.

 

It is actually a good question, I'll post a fuller answer later.

For the present, you say

Are you trying to find out which move is the most accurate and will guarantee no disadvantage and improve your position as much as it can?

No.

Accuracy is not generally required in chess. If you take forty nine moves to mate with king and queen against a king, the rules don't reward you any less than if you do it in the minimum number of moves (so long as you don't run out of time, but that, together with the tide, can wait till I post a fuller answer).

Also, you cannot make a move that theoretically improves your position; only your opponent can do that.

 

 

What if one side is guaranteed to win simply because of who moves first? Your last statement technically means that.

MARattigan

@SpaceVoidSuperEvil

If you're winning you can't be any better off whatever you move; if you have a move that wins that means you were already winning and if all moves leave you in the sh*t that means you're in the sh*t already.

If, as you postulate, one side is guaranteed to win simply because of who moves first, that's the first case.

But it's usually quite easy to theoretically improve your opponent's position. That's what practical chess is all about. Also in practical chess it is quite often possible to improve the perceived evaluation of your position by a move. That's because nobody's perceived evaluations of win draw or loss consistently match the theoretical evaluations (excepting @tygxc and @Optimissed, of course). 

tygxc

@4775
"What if one side is guaranteed to win simply because of who moves first?"
++ The extra tempo of the first move is worth 0.33 pawn and is not enough to win.
In a drawn position you have at least one good move that keeps the draw,
and errors (?) that turn the draw into a loss.
In a won position you have at least one good move that wins,
errors (?) that turn the win back to a draw,
and blunders or double errors (??) that turn the win into a loss.

Elroch
tygxc wrote:

@4775
"What if one side is guaranteed to win simply because of who moves first?"
++ The extra tempo of the first move is worth 0.33 pawn and is not enough to win.

Q: do engines ever evaluate a position that is winning as 0.33?

A: yes, certainly. Even in tiny samples you can find examples of where engines get it wrong, by losing from a position with evaluation 0.33 (or -0.33)

tygxc

@4782

"Even in tiny samples you can find examples of where engines get it wrong, by losing from a position with evaluation 0.33 (or -0.33)"
++ Engines err, otherwise they would draw 100% and not 99%. Whenever an engine game from the initial position is decisive, it is a decisive game starting from +0.33. It is rare for an engine game to be decisive. That is why in TCEC they now impose slightly unbalanced openings, so as to start around +0.5 or -0.5.

MARattigan

Be quick!

MARattigan
Elroch wrote:
tygxc wrote:

@4775
"What if one side is guaranteed to win simply because of who moves first?"
++ The extra tempo of the first move is worth 0.33 pawn and is not enough to win.

Q: do engines ever evaluate a position that is winning as 0.33?

A: yes, certainly. Even in tiny samples you can find examples of where engines get it wrong, by losing from a position with evaluation 0.33 (or -0.33)

Not to mention drawing from a position with evaluation -25.5.

 

Elroch
Optimissed wrote:


If you can't see why you were using inductive thinking, I suggest not to take your own word on the matter but to try to think about it for a year or two. Something might click. It may even take you longer.

Thanks for making me smile.

My statement was an example of a fundamental rule of logic. The general version is:

If (all things with property P have property Q) and (X has property P) then (X has property Q)

P was the set of finite deterministic games of perfect information, X was chess, and P was any chosen theorem about games of class P.

Am I right to give you the credit for being able to see this is deductive reasoning, not inductive reasoning?

Elroch
Optimissed wrote:

That is because you're relying on the deductive part to carry you through but the deductive part is very simple and straightforward, seemingly indicating that your thinking is also simple and straightforward.

The important thing is that you're arguing from an ideal. That's basically something that you've constructed mentally but it doesn't mean that your syllogism is an accurate representation of the reality we're trying to discuss. You're only asserting that it is.

It ain't.

The game of basic chess is a mathematical object (indeed a finite, combinatorial object describable as a sort of directed graph of all legal positions), an example of a class of games about which there are theorems.

There is no approximation at all in the application of theorems of the theory of finite games. I feel you should be able to understand this.

Mighty_Morphin

is there a cheating happening here? cause i had disconnection problem several times specially when winning . .. blitz 5 mins

 

MARattigan

Yes. Somehow replaced it with a new response and didn't think it worth reinstating since you'd copied it anyway. 

DiogenesDue
Optimissed wrote:

I think, after a moment's reflection, that you believe that you have the answer to everything. Even I don't try to teach you statistics but you try to teach me my subject.

I would put your IQ at around 145 to 155 at a guess. I have a good record of guessing these things. According to btickler, in a moment of honesty perhape, I got his within about 3 points. What I am trying to say is that you're used to being right. Used to being the cleverest in the bunch.

If you can't see why you were using inductive thinking, I suggest not to take your own word on the matter but to try to think about it for a year or two. Something might click. It may even take you longer.

Ummm, no.  I posted it well beforehand, you forgot it later, then predicted it back to me (which I neither confirmed nor denied, by the way, 3pts or otherwise).

This is probably why you also believe you have psychic predictive powers.

DiogenesDue
Optimissed wrote:

Ummmm weird!
It's the Paranoid Kid!

You got the weird part right, sort of.

Elroch

Just to check, is there a single person (other than @Optimissed) who bizarrely thinks that the fact that general theorems about games of the class to which chess belongs applies to chess is "inductive" rather than a logical deduction?

If there is, I would politely advise them to get a better understanding of the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. Any reputable source will do. (I assume that @Optimissed himself is too pig-headed to take that advice, so is doomed to remain wrong. I wish I could be more optimistic wink.png ).

Modus Ponens

DiogenesDue
Optimissed wrote:

Incidentally, <<<who bizarrely thinks that the fact that general theorems about games of the class to which chess belongs>>> shows a number of mistakes. Firstly, the insertion of "bizarrely" turns it into a leading or prejudiced question, making it clear that you don't really want to know who agrees with whom, if anyone has any formed opinions in any case.
However, we can be more destructive if we choose. Firstly, you seem to think of chess as a game of perfect information. That is obviously highly questionable but it is beside the point, since you evidently do not know what games theory is or how to apply it. If you did, you would understand that games theory cannot be applied to aid the solving of chess, since chess cannot be reduced to a model of itself.
You do seem to lack the capability to understand even the most basic and fundamental points I'm making. You don't attempt to answer them because you don't understand them. You come across to me as not all that bright and I don't care a hang of what you think of my own abilities because your historic inability to actually answer any points I make shows you for what you are. And what you are is what you have made yourself into.

Somebody messaged me out of the blue the other day and suggested to me that you and btickler are the same person. I replied that I didn't think that you are. I won't say who.

Have you ever considered that people mess with your head because you respond to "messages out of the blue" and are an easy target?

DiogenesDue
Optimissed wrote:

No, because they don't. It's still relevant though, but perhaps you can't work out why. It's partly something to do with you and Elroch being similar, in that you both will argue that black is white if it means that by doing so, you don't have to concede a point because you can evade it by sidetracking. I could see where they were coming from.

Also, the person concerned considers you both to be trolls.

Fascinating.  Have you asked them their opinion on the royal family?  Better make use of this topical resource while they are deigning to give you free information wink.png...