Chess will never be solved, here's why

Steinitz - "I can give God pawn and move and still win"

Since all statements by world chess champions are true (@tygxc assures me) the conclusion is clear.

Your proposal makes some assumptions I don't accept:

     Chess is inherently a draw. Ignoring ICCF won/lost games because "there must have a mistake" could miss a line of play that would indicate chess could be a win.

     That the "good assistants" could pinpoint the only three viable alternatives, and thinking there could only be three alternative moves. 

     Thinking the good assistants will always be correct in their assessment of what will be the "obvious" result. 

     Believing that present-day machines and programming cannot be relegated to "the dustbin of history" by any revolutionary advances that would make your five million years of calculation a joke.

     Again, just because I, or tygxc, or you, or Sveshnikov believes that chess is inherently a draw does NOT make it so. Starting with the idea that chess is a draw and achieving "not a proof or an attempted proof" but simply a reinforcement of our opinions is essentially worthless.

     If you had read the post you would realize that it was tygxc that used the phrase 'five million years" to pooh-pooh my belief that a more reliable proof is possible in the long run.

     If we are not discussing whether chess can be determined to be inherently won/lost or is drawn, then the OP solved the issue with his observation that as a practical matter chess is already "solved" as a competitive endeavor by the most successful players--what they (man or machine) do is the best chess. He goes on to posit that no algorithms or computer analysis can change that. It would seem that under those criteria the Sveshnikov proposition would do no more to "solve"  the game than Capablanca has already achieved.

     Therefore the ensuing 5588 entries here are just a waste of time.

I would call that a "nugget"......

@5585

"Chess is inherently a draw." ++ Yes. There is massive evidence: expert options, ICCF, TCEC, AlphaZero, human games, and the deductive argument that an advantage of 1 tempo < 1 pawn is insufficient to win: you cannot queen a tempo.

"Ignoring ICCF won/lost games because "there must have a mistake" could miss a line of play that would indicate chess could be a win." ++ If you look at decisive ICCF WC Finals games, it is always possible to pinpoint the mistake, usually the last move.

"That the "good assistants" could pinpoint the only three viable alternatives"
++ It is not the good assistants, but the engine that pinpoint the 3 best alternatives once the calculation is running. The good assistants only launch the calculation, i.e. set up the tabiya and they occasionally terminate a calculation e.g. in case of a clear draw.

"thinking there could only be three alternative moves"
++ I previously calculated that, extrapolating from the AlphaZero autoplay paper.
The table base best move is always among the 4 top engine moves if the 10^9 positions /s engine runs for 17 s except for 1 error in 10^20 positions.
You can verify that by setting up a KRPP vs. KRP endgame and letting your desktop run for 4.7 h.

 "good assistants will always be correct in their assessment of what will be the "obvious" result."
++ The good assistants only occasionally intervene and only if they are sure.
ICCF (grand)masters do not resign drawn positions or draw in won positions.

"Believing that present-day machines and programming cannot be relegated to "the dustbin of history" by any revolutionary advances"
++ Engines get better. Their error rate goes down. You can see that in TCEC. ICCF WC Finals games now have less errors and thus less decisive games than 10 years ago.

Quantum computers hold the potential to advance in table bases: from 7 to 8, to 9 men...

The idea that you the top three choices of an engine always include a best move is laughable.

Not for the foreseeable future they don't.

If it's competitive and with humans, no. Why? Because humans aren't computers. People always say "best move", in videos, but not everyone plays the "best move", because a "best move" is only a "best move", if you know that the next move, is also the "best move". I don't ever hear anyone talk about this. Chess engines are very great and good to use and helpful, but they aren't helpful when you don't have them and it's move 36 and you have a clock going down and you've never seen this position before because your opponent is in the same boat as you on move 34. To me this is obvious. I guarantee there are moves that GMs don't understand in certain position that an engine recommends on a given move in a game and it's a game that started off on some "Normal line". Also, another thing that bugs me is that if chess hasn't been 100% been solved, than how can us humans say a move is a blunder when we have to admit we haven't solved chess. Computer engines have recommended moves that we call a blunder, yet chess engines are better than humans. Sooo... Is it really a blunder by definition by the computer? Because back to my first point, you have to KNOW that your opponents next move will be the best one. But the problem is... How can we humans say a move is the best move, when chess engines haven't solved chess? Also, all players, even GMs play different according to their emotions at some point because humans aren't perfect, which makes chess interesting. There is no best moves guys, just like there is no spoon. Anyone else know what I'm talking about? That was a good poop.

@5593
"The idea that you the top three choices of an engine always include a best move"
++ Not the top 3, but the top 4.
Starting from a drawn ICCF WC Finals game, there are 3 alternatives to each move. 3 + 1 = 4.
I arrived at the 4 by extrapolating from the AlphaZero autoplay paper.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.04374 Figure 2.
At 1 s / move: 88.2% draws, 11.8% decisive
At 1 min / move: 97.9% draws, 2.1% decisive
Extrapolating:
At 1 h / move: 2.1% * 2.1% / 11.8% = 0.37% decisive
At 60 h / move: 0.37% * 2.1% / 11.8% = 0.067% decisive
60 h / move on the engine of the paper corresponds to 17 s on an engine of a billion positions/s
Assuming game length 37 moves: average of ICCF WC Finals: 1 error in 10^5 positions.
Thus for 4 moves: 1 error in (10^5)^4 = 10^20 positions.

You can verify this.
Take a KRPP vs. KRP position, run it for 17000 s = 4.7 h on a desktop.
Verify the table base exact move is among the top 4 engine moves.

@5596
"how can us humans say a move is a blunder"
++ We have ample evidence that chess is a draw. Thus each decisive game must contain an odd number of mistakes, at least 1. By inspection it is possible to identify at least 1 mistake.

"How can we humans say a move is the best move"
++ We cannot, except for positions with 7 men or less, which have been strongly solved.
We also have statistical evidence. We can say that all the moves of a drawn game in the ICCF world championship finals are > 99% certain to be optimal moves.
For example all moves in this game https://www.iccf.com/game?id=1164259 are > 99% sure to be optimal moves. There is < 1% probability that there are 2 mistakes that undo each other.

Correct. This is just speculation at the moment. Like pretty much all of @tygxc's "conclusions".

One ridiculous estimate is that only 10^17 positions will need to be examined. Let's consider the last TCEC superfinal games - https://live.chessbase.com/en/Games?id=TCEC-Season-22---Superfinal

The average length of these games (with both sides having free access to a tablebase) is 74 moves. If all analysis games were the same length, a branching factor (adjusted for transposition) of 3 would give 2x10^35 positions. Even a branching factor of 2 would give more than 10^22 positions. As it happens this is a systematic underestimation, because the game lengths go up to 135 moves and the longer games greatly dominate the size of the position tree for reasons that are (hopefully) obvious.

[To illustrate, the average from 1 to 135 of 2^n is 6.45e38] 

Funniest one yet?

Here @tygxc is justifying one of the steps in his faulty reasoning to show chess is a forced draw by starting by assuming the conclusion that chess is a forced draw! Of course, this is a well-known fallacy.

Classic Fallacy 1: Assuming the Conclusion

It's worth drawing attention to another fallacy implicit in almost all of @tygxc's posts, including the above - arguing that something is probable and then assuming it has become certain. He does this twice in above single post! First he thinks "ample evidence" suffices to prove the conclusion that chess is a draw by induction. No. Not a proof. Then he uses "statistical evidence" to justify a claim he then relies on as certain.

This can never be done in a legitimate proof.

Classic Fallacy 2: Appeal to Probability

@5598

"only 10^17 positions will need to be examined" ++ Yes, that is right.

"the last TCEC superfinal games"
++ TCEC has 50 imposed openings chosen to be slightly unbalanced:
not too balanced to avoid all draws, not too unbalanced to avoid win / loss.

"The average length of these games is 74 moves" ++ They play on too long.
In ICCF the humans would agree on a draw sooner when there is no hope for either side to win.

"If all analysis games were the same length, a branching factor (adjusted for transposition) of 3 would give 2x10^35 positions." ++ That is neglecting transpositions, essential in Chess.
As said before: with width w and depth d
Upper bound without transpositions 1 + w + w² + w³ + ... w^d = (w^(d+1) - 1) / (w - 1)
Lower bound with full transpositions 1 + w/1! + w²/2! + w³/3! + ... = e^w, regardless of d
For an estimate take the geometric mean of the upper bound and the lower bound.

"Even a branching factor of 2 would give more than 10^22 positions."
++ Neglecting transpositions.

"the game lengths go up to 135 moves" ++ Because they play on too long.

"To illustrate, the average from 1 to 135 of 2^n is 6.45e38" ++ neglecting transpositions.
This also proves the upper bound is way too high: there are less than 10^32 positions that can result from optimal play by both players.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.09386 

@5599

"chess is a forced draw by starting by assuming the conclusion that chess is a forced draw"
++ No. Evidence that Chess is a draw:

1) Expert opinions: Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Fischer, Kasparov, Kramnik, Carlsen.

2) AlphaZero autoplay: more time = more draws, even if stalemate = win

3) TCEC: forced openings to avoid all draws

4) Human top matches and tournaments

5) ICCF WC Finals: g games = d draws + w wins
First assume chess is a forced win. Try to fit a Poisson distribution of errors / game with a probability d / g for an odd number or errors per game. It is impossible.
Consequently assume chess is a draw. Fit a Poisson distribution  of errors / game with a probability w / g for an odd number of errors per game.
It is possible and shows the drawn games are > 99% sure to be perfect games with optimal play by both players and < 1% to contain 2 errors that undo each other.
If you really have a degree in statistics, then you should appreciate this argument.

6) A deductive argument. A tempo in the opening is worth 1/3 of a pawn.
You can queen a pawn, but you cannot queen a tempo. A tempo is not enough to win.
First you say an extra bishop does not win and then you say an extra tempo wins.

No, he just gets his good assistants to type it for him.

Ignoring the last bit of irrelevant nonsense, that is correct.  What @tygxc is trying to do is "strengthen his opinion". He wants a team of GMs and a few million dollars worth of computational resources to do so.

The problem is equating this with the rigorous solution of the game, like for checkers, connect4 and so on. It just ain't the same.

And here he is again, adding the Fallacy of Excessive Extrapolation and  the Fallacy of Appeal to Inappropriate Authority to the Fallacy of Appeal to Probability to come to the conclusion that chess is a draw. The most that is permissible is to say chess is probably a draw. 

And of course the purpose of the use of this fallacy is to use the "fact" that chess is a draw for further invalid reasoning.

Try to learn something @tygxc, unless you are beyond the stage of life where it is possible to make new neural connections.

I dont know if anyone have mentioned it, but is there a possibility it is a forced win for black aswell? Like in a zugzwang or something. Just a random thought that crossed my mind

The sober answer is that this is not disproven, so should be given at least a tiny bit of credence. It might seem unlikely, but there is no known proof that it is not so.