@5419
"I think chess will eventually be solved" ++ Probably, depends on money 3 million $.
"Just not in our lifetimes" ++ Maybe, depends on money 3 million $.
"I do think we will eventually have the technology?" ++ We already have it.
"Is it technology we understand now?" ++ Yes.
One way the discussion here could make some progress here by tygxc or someone else is by accepting that all of the "proof" and calculations presented here (number of relevant positions and relevant lines, calculation abilities of current computers) are all estimates.
Tygxc is actually putting in some real effort to make real calculations but is too tied in with the 5 years and other presumptions, presenting them and all calculations based on these presumptions as facts. Only thing we got is an estimation based on calculations with all variables being optimal. Would like to see a range of estimations having the variables suboptimal, like for example assuming we need to calculate a (exponentially) larger amount of relevant lines and positions than tygxc is estimating and similar approach with other variables in this equation. See what kind of opposing estimations we end up with, that perhaps demonstrate why this wouldn't be a realistic goal in our lifetime.
Right now there is some abstract discussion and objections that don't necessarily lead anywhere while Tygxc has taken a concrete but shallow path. I certainly cba to make any calculations but in case someone feels inspired
<<You seem to have contracted ExploringWA's illness, where every mention of anyone in your life (after expounding upon them yourself) is an attack on them.>>
It definitely seems more like 20. It isn't an attack on her but you see it as an attack on me. However, she's a realistic person who knows that there are people running around who are not well. No mental health professional is going to look at you and think you're well.
Is she is realistic, she won't go near your over-the-internet diagnosis with a 10 foot pole. I suspect she would roast you with potatoes and rosemary if she knew what you've been doing here. I would guess she might say something like: "Roger! That logical, rational man even told you to stop bringing me into the discussion if you didn't like me being discussed and then you immediately turned right around and did it again! I'm glad you stopped doing this at our dinner parties, but online is really no better...stop hiding things from me. I can't believe you are back on the IQ carousel, either. At least you haven't gone back into that nonsense about your "powers"...that girl ruined your life...wait, what?"
You should try to realise that you are obsessive-compulsive and its severe, so it's a disorder. I know that coming from me, you aren't going to take a blind bit of notice but you aren't a happy person, to the extent that it's affecting you negatively. For your own sake, try to understand that you may have some role models here who are extremely negative and bad for you. I'm not trying to harm you. I would like to help but that isn't possible until you see that there's something not quite right.
The only thing not quite right is your worldview in general. Your self-awareness is non-existent. "Holier than thou" only has a chance of working if you are not the poster child for everything you try to accuse others of.
I don't have any role models here anymore, actually.
[and]
There are too many people in this thread reinforcing your views and the way you act. I think you should drop all attempts to try to correct other people's behaviour and just interact in threads in a friendly and non-threatening way. Try to make people like you. I don't mean the wrong people either ... the ones who are the bad role models. Just ordinary, happy, friendly people. Just learn to interact non-threateningly and in a friendly way.
Well, I guess I could do it like you do it...I could act generally friendly until someone implies I am wrong, then call them idiots and imbeciles, pretend I am smarter than everyone else, and condescend to them by pretending to diagnose their "problems"? Then return to my veneer of reasonability until the next person crosses me? Does that seem to work for you with other people? Because somehow it doesn't seem to work on me, so I cannot see the utility of it.
It would do you a lot of good if you could manage it.
Read your entire post and apply it to the correct target...yourself. Now read my post, and remove your ego-driven assumptions about me being upset about you, and accept that you do not come across as wise or competent, but as a hypocrite who is oblivious to his own behavior.
It would do you a lot of good...if you could manage it,
@5449
"number of relevant positions" ++ Yes, 10^17 is an estimate arrived at in 2 ways:
1) top down from number of legal positions 10^44, then discarding positions that cannot result from optimal play to 10^32, then applying analogy to Checkers and Losing Chess to 10^17.
2) bottom up calculating an upper bound assuming no transpositions, calculating a lower bound assuming all transpositions, then taking the geometric mean, then adding more to 10^17.
"abilities of current computers" ++ That is established: a billion positions / s
https://chessify.me/blog/nps-what-are-the-nodes-per-second-in-chess-engine-analysis
"larger amount of relevant lines and positions than tygxc is estimating"
Here is some dispute.
1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? is a sure loss for white, checkmate in 82. Thus that position and the whole tree that could result from it is not relevant and a waste of computer time.
AlphaZero ranked all 20 opening moves from best to worst with no other input but the Laws of Chess. https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.09259 Figures 5 & 31. Once the 4 best moves 1 e4, 1 d4, 1 c4, 1 Nf3 are proven draws, then the 16 worst moves cannot win either and thus are irrelevant.
The final position of this game https://www.iccf.com/game?id=1164259 is a clear draw.
Neither side can win. This position and the whole tree that can result from it until 3-fold repetition is irrelevant and a waste of computer time.
"a realistic goal in our lifetime"
++ It is realistic, can be done in 5 years,
but costs 3 million $ to hire the 3 ICCF (grand)masters and rent the 3 cloud engines.
"objections that don't necessarily lead anywhere"
++ Yes, e.g. the completely irrelevant 50-moves rule.
When Chinook had evaluated all the legal openings in checkers, no-one was foolish enough to suggest it was ok to ignore all but 4 of them when solving checkers. That is because they understood what solving a game means to those who do research in this area.
Everyone knows that @tygxc uses his own special language where "solve" means something entirely different, while failing to understand that if you change the definition, you don't answer the question, you answer a different question.
@5453
""solve" means something entirely different"
++ No, I adhere strictly to van den Herik:
'the game-theoretic value of a game is the outcome when all participants play optimally'
'weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined to achieve the game-theoretic value against any opposition'
'optimal means most desirable or satisfactory' - Webster
'oppose means to strive against, resist' - Webster
1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? is not optimal play and does not oppose to the game-theoretic value.
1 e4, 1 d4, 1 c4, 1 Nf3 are more optimal and resist more to the draw than the other 16.
@5453
""solve" means something entirely different"
++ No, I adhere strictly to van den Herik:
'the game-theoretic value of a game is the outcome when all participants play optimally'
'weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined to achieve the game-theoretic value against any opposition'
'optimal means most desirable or satisfactory' - Webster
'oppose means to strive against, resist' - Webster
1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? is not optimal play and does not oppose to the game-theoretic value.
1 e4, 1 d4, 1 c4, 1 Nf3 are more optimal and resist more to the draw than the other 16.
All those familiar with the peer-reviewed literature understand that "any opposition" means any legal opposition. You use an inappropriate, woefully vague (i.e. undefined and undefinable) alternative.
@5453
""any opposition" means any legal opposition"
++ Where in any peer reviewed literature is said that 'any opposition' means 'all legal moves'?
If they meant that, then they would have written 'all legal moves' and not 'all opposition'.
Also the van den Herik paper clearly calls for all participants (white too) to play optimally.
There is nothing inappropriate, vague, undefined, or undefinable in that.
White tries to win, i.e. oppose to the game-theoretic value.
Black tries to draw, i.e. achieve the game-theoretic value.
If white fails and black succeeds, then Chess is weakly solved.
1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? or 1 a4 do not even try to win.
These are neither optimal nor oppose to the game-theoretic value.
All published solutions of games involve using this definition and not some half-cocked one based on only showing you can beat moves that imprecise heuristics suggest are better. For example, no-one claimed checkers had been solved until the job had been done properly. That means strategies that are proven against all legal opposition.
Here is a quote from the peer-reviewed paper announcing the solution of checkers after many years of exhaustive computation:
"The proof consists of an explicit strategy that never loses – the program can achieve at least a draw against any opponent, playing either the black or white pieces."
The italics are from the paper, and emphasise that a strategy has to be proven against any strategy ("opponent"). Given a position and a legal move, it is easy to define an opponent/strategy that plays that move. Thus my point is confirmed.
Checkers is solved (Science, 2007)
@5449
Now you invent a new meaning of the van den Herik paper.
Solved games like Checkers, Losing Chess, Nine Men's Morris, Connect Four are simpler than Chess. All of those games have a high fraction of irreversible moves.
Chess has an enormous number of nonsense moves.
There are billions of ways to reach the position 1 e4 e5. All but one are nonsense and irrelevant to solving chess.
That is why for weakly solving chess it is not only allowed and beneficial to incorporate knowledge, it is a necessity. That is also why GM Sveshnikov called for good assistants first and for modern computers second. One cannot do it without the other.
No new meanings, just (to be frank) superior understanding.
The word "any" in the paper is unambiguous.
Effectively though, "any" opposition means any opposition that isn't downright stupid.
Firstly, it is not "opposition", it is "opponent".
Secondly, "any opponent" (with the italic used in the paper) is unambiguous. It is not some vague subset of them, but ALL of them.
When a GM turns up to a simultaneous display against 100 players aiming to get a 100% score, he doesn't start by saying "I'll take all the wins against players of rating less than 1200 as a given" and then proceed to play the rest. He doesn't get a win if he doesn't play.
Likewise a proof tree has to deal with weak opponent moves as well as strong moves in order to do its job.
@5461
But the word 'opposition' is unambiguous too, cf. Webster dictionary.
'Any' opposition means against 1 e4, 1 d4, 1 c4, and 1 Nf3. Not just one of those.
'All participants play optimally' is unambiguous too.
Relevant are:
How to draw against 1 e4?
How to draw against 1 d4?
How to draw against 1 c4?
How to draw against 1 Nf3?
Not relevant are:
How to win against 1 g4?
How to draw against 1 f3?
How to draw against 1 Na3?
How to draw against 1 h4?
@5461
But the word 'opposition' [snip]
The word "opponent" is the relevant one, since this is the word used in the paper. "any opponent".
Every single person with passable understanding of the subject understands the meaning.
@5466
"The word "opponent" is the relevant one" ++ in a paper about Checkers only.
The van den Herik paper is more relevant: 'Games solved Now and in the future'
'All participants play optimally'
'any opposition' not any legal moves
When a GM turns up to a simultaneous display against 100 players aiming to get a 100% score, he doesn't start by saying "I'll take all the wins against players of rating less than 1200 as a given" and then proceed to play the rest.
Hope GM Niemann doesn't read that - you might give him ideas
@5466
"The word "opponent" is the relevant one" ++ in a paper about Checkers only.
The van den Herik paper is more relevant: 'Games solved Now and in the future'
'All participants play optimally'
'any opposition' not any legal moves
The phrase, "all participants play optimally" is used only to define "game-theoretical value". There is nothing in van den Herik's paper that says the phrase can be applied in any context tygxc pleases.
Of course not "any legal moves".
This is a frustrated win under competition rules.
White to play
White can win against any legal moves but he can't win against any legal moves and draw claims. Legal opposition includes both. It definitely doesn't say, "weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined to achieve the game-theoretic value against anything tygxc would play"; I've read it.
The definition you're using is in any case flawed as I've pointed out many times before.
The strategy "play Qa7" from the position below is a strategy that achieves the game theoretic value of a Black win against all opposition (in an abstract game that doesn't include resignation; in the FIDE defined games there can be no game theoretic value). That accords with a weak solution of the position according to your definition, but is not what anybody on the thread except yourself would call a weak solution of the position.
White to play, ply count 0
Incidentally no show yet for your calculation of the theoretical result and error rates in my games here. Are you still working on it?
Will it take more than 5 years? Do you need a supercomputer before you can start?
I was trying to help. Again, "hypocrite" can apply only to yourself. I knew you would try to use it against me but you're only using it against yourself. You're mentally ill and most people on this site who know you know that. Not the people in this thread, for the most part though and that's why you hide here these days. Again, I have no need to read your posts and I don't do so but a glance is enough to get the general tone. What I wrote about you is true and correct. It is obvious that all the anger comes from you and that the obsession and compulsive behaviour does too. Anyone should be able to see it and most people do.
You understand that people can see right through your constant claims of knowing what anyone/everyone else thinks, right? That's part of your delusion...the idea that you are representative of others when you go out of your way to make it clear you are better than they are and don't give a hoot about them.
You have a few crackpots that talk to you, who are themselves persona non grata in general here and who also habitually try to be a nuisance, as you do. Hardly a representative sample of anything worthwhile.
I was going to try to work in a joke about a 70 year old with a 160 IQ having the mental age of a 112 year old.......but at this point I don't think it works. Oh well. Never mind.....but I am gratified that a few people actually do remember the origin of the concept.