Chess will never be solved, here's why

It's far from ludicrous, being the current reality we all live in.  You don't know if Ba6 guarantees a black win...you cannot demonstrate it conclusively, nor can any chess player alive or dead, with or without engine assistance.  

P.S. You lumped myself and Mar with Tygxc when Elroch is the person you meant...did you even bother to review your post?

@4195
"Losing chess is a completely different game with forced captures"
++ Yes, Losing Chess is a simpler game, that is why Chess needs more than 10^9 positions.
However, it shows that the number of legal positions 10^44 is not related to the number of positions needed to weakly solve a game.

Of course I know that Ba6 is won for black. Maybe it's too late to tell you not to be ridiculous. Also, Elroch explained that he had made a simple mistake. Stop behaving like a kid and going on and on about it. Your reading comprehension is currently about zero. You're cracking up and I do mean that.

You're not even talking about the same incident, which is par for your course.  If you know that Ba6 is won for black, then you can beat Stockfish from that position, on command.  Go ahead and demonstrate, without using an engine.  You can do it on live chess.

I know that K+R vs. K is won, vs. any engine, and I will happily demonstrate it.  If you are claiming to know, 100%, then you are claiming the same level of confidence.  You would think after a decade of watching Ponz get pounded for his 99.9999% that you might have learned something about making hyperbolic assertions...but alas, no.

10^17 will never be the number for any solution of chess.  You will be cold in your grave still dreaming about that number.

@4200
I hope you are still alive when Chess is solved with around 10^17 positions.

Even if chess was solved and we knew a certain position is winning, more often than not we still wouldnt be able to beat stockfish from there. I'm not sure what this conversation is supposed to prove

Can't you, sort of, pretend you know what's going on in a way that makes you look like you have at least some intelligence? You tell me off and say that I can't criticise you without resorting to insults but when you are as confused and generally childish and repetitive as you are, it isn't possible to find anything worth answering. You're just so completely obsessive and you pretend that things you say make sense and are even intelligent. Honestly, you are not worth even trying to answer because you will just find something else completely foolish to say. You're a troll, btickler. You always start your bouts of trolling in the hope that someone will insult you, so you can feel superior.

I'll watch.  (With which colour are you going to win?)

It does prove that, when faced with a chess position which is obviously, clearly and definitely lost for one side, btickler can't tell it's lost. Fair enough, because he's a weak player but next, he tells others that they can't tell it's definitely lost either.

So if Carlsen, Fischer, Kasparov and Capablanca were lined up and agreeing that it's won for black, he'd be telling them that they can't know that. I wonder who has to give him permission, before he can agree that it's won.

I think you're missing the point. As far as I know, nobody is arguing that they believe 2. Ba6 is good for white. However, they are merely pointing out that there is no proof that 2. Ba6 is won for black. It probably is, but that doesn't mean it certainly is. Even if you're 100% sure of something, that doesn't make the probability of it being true 100%.

I wonder how does the algorithm filter the moves? Just because 2.Ba6 is a piece sacrifice? There are lots of piece sacrifices that are unclear or even win the game.

No I'm not missing any point. I'm probably the only one here who isn't missing anything. Probability isn't involved, except in the minds of those people who don't understand that this is a cut and dried situation. In the context of the larger conversation with tygxc, it's this kind of mistake that makes these people extremely ineffective in their discussions with tygxc, because they don't realise that ty is completely entitled to assume that Ba6 loses. They tried to use an innocent point that ty was making against him.

If this were a philosophy debate, which it isn't, their ideas would be dismissed out of hand, since the entirety of science rests upon inductive evaluations and deduced proofs only proceed from there. So the people who demand deductive proof in all circumstances can never really find it. At best they'd be laughed at, sympathetically.

If you can't tell that 2. Ba6 is definitely a loss then you really shouldn't be commenting here. Read my posts. Probably best to ignore theirs.

The position is either a win, draw or a loss. In this case, it's a win for black. Probability isn't involved. How can it be, except for someone who believes that the win is down to chance?

It's only inappropriate in your mind.

If Magnus was here and he said there's no need for proof, would you tell him he's wrong?

If you, as a chess player, can't see that particular position is a win for black, you aren't a very good chess player are you. One or two people have incorrectly and rather foolishly brought in the completely unrelated analogy that if there were gazillions of positions then I would get some wrong. That kind of argument is out of desperation. There's one position and it's a win for black. Are you telling me that you'd have this argument with Magnus and make yourself look like a complete fool?

I don't think you would. At the very most, it's down to a personality difference but I'm the one with the philosophy degree and epistemology is my specialisation. I'm aware it comes into statistics a bit but only in a simplistic form.

So you're still going to tell Fischer he's wrong? My impression is that certain people here want to control how others think. However, the only probability is the uncertainty in your own mind.



I think your main mistake is the assumption that probability is involved and that the optimum or theoretical result of that position has some relationship with chance. Everything else flows rather awkwardly from there.

The only possible origination of this confused idea is that doubt exists in your minds, concerning the result. Therefore all your speculation about the necessity for proof is subjective only. If it was Q + K vs K, would you have the same difficulty in assessing the outcome?

I think opening the door of an aeroplane at 20,000 feet and jumping out would be a good test. After all, there's no proof that you'll die. Go for it .... you could learn from it.

Yes, the position is either a win, a draw, or a loss. But until every line has been calculated, there is no way to prove that it is a win for black. I believe it's a win for black, I'm almost certain of it. But there are many positions where a player is down a bishop but the position is a win or a draw. It's possible, no matter how unlikely, that white has a line that gets to one of those win/draw positions by force, even after 2. Ba6. And it will remain possible until someone, or something goes through every possible variation of 2. Ba6.

That seems pretty obvious. There are sacrifices in chess that often lead to winning. So it's also possible there is a very deep sacrifice (that no computer has even come close to discovering) somewhere in the opening or middle game. Which leads to a forced win, from the opening position. For either black or white. 

In that case, the kind of proof demanded is incorrect, if it cannot possibly be given. It becomes necessary to think in different ways. But in reality there's no need to look at every line because we can know it's a win for black.

If this were a philosophy debate, which it isn't, their ideas would be dismissed out of hand, since the entirety of science rests upon inductive evaluations and deduced proofs only proceed from there. So the people who demand deductive proof in all circumstances can never really find it. At best they'd be laughed at, sympathetically.