Chess will never be solved, here's why

     I did NOT say that that I am CERTAIN that  1.e4  e5  2.Ba6  is lost for white. You might have actually read my post that you quoted, then you would have seen that I said as much. A belief is not the same as certainty. Where has it been proved that that opening sequence leads to certain defeat?

     It would help if you would use correct English. However strong your (or my) belief may be, it is NOT an established fact, something not to be called into question. You only need notice that there more than 5000 posts here to see that these points ARE in dispute.

     Your malicious insinuation that I may be a drunkard is reprehensible and seems to put you into the camp of unpleasant trolls you complain are creating a poor environment here. I had plenty of disputes with Coolout so I am familiar with those who misquote me, put words into my mouth, and bandy outrageous insults.

     That's your answer? Those who don't accept your "superior" acuity must have a degree of insanity? Or do you mean I'm just angry? Imprecise language is a bad habit into which you too often lapse.

I can see your wry smile from over here...

@5304

"I did NOT say that that I am CERTAIN that  1.e4  e5  2.Ba6  is lost for white."
++ I am CERTAIN that 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? loses for white.
White loses material and all other factors are equal. There is no compensation of any kind.

"Where has it been proved that that opening sequence leads to certain defeat?"
++ As proven before: it is a forced checkmate in 82.

"it is NOT an established fact, something not to be called into question."
++ It IS an established fact, not to be called into question indeed.

"You only need notice that there more than 5000 posts here to see that these points ARE in dispute." ++ Some trolls dispute even the light of day, apparently for the fun of it.

1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? loses for white and thus is NOT optimal play by both opponents.
Hence it has no place in solving chess.

Chess can be solved in 5 years, but not if people make it a million times more complicated,
then it takes 5 million years, as they like it.

Unfortunately your proof in #5308 is clearly flawed. Black can't checkmate and lose.

It should be:

You probably overlooked the fact that 3...Ke7 is a perfect move. You need to remember that any move in a losing position is perfect.

Incidentally no show yet for your calculation of the theoretical result and error rates in my games here. Are you still working on it?

@5312
3...Ke7?? is a blunder, turns a won position into a lost position.

Ke7 is very probably a blunder, except technically in the unlikely (but not logically impossible) case that the Ba6 sacrifice is winning. Even I find it difficult to be pedantic about this, but I am epistemologically obliged to be.

@5316
That is not probable, it is sure. After 2 Ba6? white loses by force: checkmate in 82.
3 Qh5 is not worse than 3 Nf3: both moves lose.
3...Ke7?? is a sure blunder or double error: turns the won position into a lost position.
Epistemologically is a pedantic word for trolling.

You are sure. People are sure about many things, some of which are not true (including many that are reasonable but where they are later surprised).

The proposition itself is agnostic and, while an excellent hypothesis, unproven.

You are self-mocking by stating that it is a "checkmate in 82".

We'll find out when @tygxc solves chess.

Um, sorry scratch that - he's not going to solve that bit.

You overlooked it again.

Incidentally no show yet for your calculation of the theoretical result and error rates in my games here. Are you still working on it?

But quicker is not perfecter.

I found it.

You should be aware that you are engaged in a semantic disagreement. You are using the word "blunder" for an imprecise notion relating to practical chess while, in the post replied to, the word "blunder" was used for the precise theoretical concept of a move that changes the final result with optimal play thereafter.

On a very general (and very important) point, it is remarkable how often people are not fully aware whether they are debating about the truth of an objective fact or having a disagreement about the use of a label (such as "blunder" here). I am not asserting that you are not in this case.

No personal interpretation involved. I have explained how the valid forms of reasoning available do not justify certainty. Some here understand this, but not all. It is a philosophically important difference but, for the man in the street, inappropriate certainty is generally pragmatically fine.

I think @Optimissed might be right this time.

Under FIDE laws possible yields include but are arguably not restricted to (win,loss), (loss,win), (draw,draw), (win+draw,loss+draw), (loss+draw,win+draw), (win,win), (win+draw,win+draw) and (arbiter determined) without any ordering specified. The objective is checkmate but that cannot be forced except from positions that are already checkmate.

What part of game theory would apply?

Still thinking about 213276247234766621; don't tell me. It's not prime nor (I think) a recognisable Carmichael number, but it has fewer factors than you'd expect. 

I think, rather, he will assume you're still learning (at age 71) but don't yet know what you're talking about.

While I understand that you are being light-hearted, you understand that "solving chess" refers unambiguously to the abstract game of chess (or, to be precise, a version of it defined by the relevant rule set), which has no time limits, nothing happening off the board, but may include well-defined rules such as the option (or obligation) to claim a draw in an n-times repeated position, or when the 50 move rule applies.

No arbiters ever the chance to get involved any more than they do in the solution of tic-tac-toe  - the only laws involved are those that govern legal moving and results.

If I recall, the only appeal to game theory that has taken place in this forum was to a general theorem that applies to a class of games to which chess belongs. Given the definitions:

1. A (pure) strategy for a side is defined as a procedure that generates a move for any legal position (note that a mixed strategy is one where it may vary the chosen move in a position, but we don't need these).
2. The value of a strategy is the minimum of the values it achieves against all opposing strategies
3. An optimal strategy for a side is a strategy that achieves the maximum of the values of all strategies for a side

then there exists an optimal strategy for each side and these strategies achieve the same result.

I'd like this theorem to be trivial, but when trying to show it was, I convinced myself it is not quite! The theorem seems to rely on the fact that every game is finite, for example.

Game theory does not deal with probabilistic outcomes in games like chess (deterministic, perfect information).

Tablebase results are discrete.

Perfect play can be clearly defined in a tablebase.

This is true for a (hypothetical) 32-piece tablebase.

(The only place probabilities have arisen here is as states of belief for unresolved propositions).