Chess will never be solved, here's why

No, crackpots consist of:

- Those who think they have psychic powers

- Those you argue against climate change using daffodils as a main argument

- Those who shoot airguns at paper cups in their garages, measuring themselves for accuracy and speed

- Those who pop in and out from the tropics in a manic fashion and declare things that make no sense

Etc.

The specific manifestations are quite varied, but the criteria is pretty much the same.

I've already contributed far more to this thread and others of its ilk than you ever will with your vague posturing and naysaying of basic definitions.  

Background noise is what your arguments amount to.  Feel free to peruse the thread and you will find all the concrete things you have forgotten .

If you did have better things to do you wouldn't be adding more of your "and another thing" consecutive posts .

Getting confused here. I thought we were talking about this paper.

1.1 Conventions  para.2 (p278.)

weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined to achieve the game-theoretic value against any opposition,

@MARattigan, I wasn't and you will find the paper published in Science that I referred to linked from my earlier post:

Checkers is solved

That being said, the meaning of "any opposition" is the same. There is no unambiguous distinction between opposition that needs to be addressed and opposition that doesn't without properly verifying it.  Indeed "opposition that is not good enough" can only really be defined unambiguously by the result that it achieves, something which is not certain until it is checked.

The weak solution of checkers and every single other case of weak solution dealt with in the literature of course uses the same definition and is equally thorough in the way that it applies it. That is why the solution of checkers took years of computing.

EVERY single legal move by the opponent of a strategy needs to be checked to a known result (assisted by a tablebase).

     Who gets to judge what is/is not "stupid"? A panel of five GMs? AlphaZero? Optimissed? Once you arbitrarily omit broad swaths of lines from consideration, you open the conclusions reached to reasonable doubt.

It would be a big step forward if some people here would take the time to understand what was done in the weak solution of checkers and other games, and to realise that tells you what is necessary to solve chess (according to the universally accepted meaning). It's just a lot harder because of the size.

Elroch, tygxc, mpaetz, and MARattigan are having a fascinating discussion of the topic. Much of it is over my head, but I'm following it best I can and appreciate the effort they're making to provide valid, topical information. 
I would respectfully ask that others who are using this thread to wage a personal feud back off and let the rest of us focus on the real discussion without having to sort out long posts that are nothing but personal insults that no one else cares about. 

Well, it is certainly enormously challenging and out of present reach.

When you conclude something like that, it is appropriate to accept it, not to muddy the waters by redefining terms in a bad way to stop the conclusion being true.

It's worth mentioning that this rant makes no sense. People writing papers and most of those reading them are already very familiar with the notion of a pure (opposing) strategy, and use the word "opponent" as an convenient shorthand.

     No, solving chess involves finding out whether or not there are any lines that will win by force from the initial position for either side no matter what the opponent might try. Whatever algorithm might be developed to sidestep this task cannot yield a complete proof.

I would respectfully ask that if you do not like seeing confrontation on the forums that you report people anyone that calls others "idiots", "imbeciles", "dullards", "morons", etc.  Not just once, but every single time.  Report actionable behavior.  When the forums are largely clear of such trolls, there will be a distinct drop in confrontations overall.  If the mods don't follow up on "verbal abuse" reports with visible results over the long term, consider escalating to staff.

So does everyone, but so far all you've managed is a stupid way that doesn't work.

You can easily discount your own calculations by applying them to the games I posted here.

You claim they will tell you the result of the starting position and the number of errors in each game. Why don't you do that and we can check your conclusions with Syzygy?

How long does it take?

You can keep pretending he isn't talking to both of us, but it makes you look pretty oblivious.  The difference between us is you confront all kinds of posters.  I confront people who confront other people ...and I do it in a measured and non-abusive manner.

    It seems that you are the one who is confused. Perhaps you neglected to read most of the posts here or just can't remember what others have written. I have repeatedly said that the only real solution is a calculation to checkmate or a draw in all possible lines. The kinds of half-a**ed solutions some others may suggest I don't consider entirely valid.

You will find I have already provided the answer to this.

When solving games you can either include draw claims as legal moves that end the game or make the draws automatic. It doesn't matter to solving the game which one you do (a strategy that is trying to win that repeats moves can either be improved by avoiding a pointless return to a position already visited.  It's like if you win a game over the board after repeating positions once, you could have won more quickly by a more direct route.

    No, that would be your constant claim. I have proposed no method to make the solution easier. I have said that a solution awaits the development of much better engines or a breakthrough in methodology.

Lol, only to you.  Part of the delusion.  I am routinely more aware of things.  Even now, you feel like MikeKalish was *mostly* talking about me...

Let me give you a little insight.  When people do try to talk to me about you, they say things like "you should stop picking on him" or "why do you lower yourself to his level?".  The answer is that I treat you as an equal by default.  Always have.  You are still, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, capable of change.  You could decide to stop insulting people around you.  You could decide to stop pontificating on topics you have no expertise in and then trashing those who do have expertise.  You could decide to stop pretending there's a cabal of posters in cahoots to take you down.  In a general sense, I expect better of people because I believe they are capable.

You are quite the opposite...nobody is your equal, and you expect everyone to acknowledge that or you immediately dislike them.  How many times just in recent weeks have you said something like "I thought you were [some attribute], but now I realize [something derogatory about the target]" to somebody after they have come out in direct disagreement with you?  Nervesofbutter is one example, there are more.  It's petty and small-minded, ultimately. 

You'll notice over time if you were to pay attention that whenever you say something, it's usually about the person, when I say something, it's usually about the behavior or mindset.  That's the difference between making a pointed observation in an attempt to get someone to see something about themselves without rancor (the latter), vs. being bitter and vengeful (the former).