Chess will never be solved, here's why

Why don't we solve the goddamn lag before asking if chess can be "solved" ugh

This is correct, but I think we all understand a valid way to a solution (apart from practicality of resources) is to use heuristics (eg Stockfish evaluations based on incomplete analysis) to arrive a strategy. We both understand that this strategy has to deal with every legal move that the opposing side to a strategy could play.

You're still talking about a strategy. As we know that the heuristics are imprecise, and since strategy uses tactics in its execution, it is not a valid way to a solution.

A directly analogous approach led to a full, rigorous weak solution to checkers - i.e. a complete drawing strategy for black and for white.

It's worth remembering that at that time they had an extremely strong checkers engine, Chinook, capable of holding its own against the greatest human player of all time, Marion Tinsley. This would only very rarely not play a best move, and helped reduce the analysis a lot. It does seem certain to me that the analysis would have involved some backtracking rather than merely playing Chinook's top choice every time (the reason I say this is that Chinook had lost a game to Tinsley, so did occasionally play inferior moves).

While I haven't been completely precise, my notion is that we can ignore moves by the opponent that lead to a position that has already been dealt with nearer to the starting position.
Absolutely amazing. Who would have thought of that, though??

To be more precise, at first pass, the strategy generates all positions that can be reached in a single ply by applying the strategy (i.e. it picks a first move). The second pass is to add all positions that are reachable by legal moves by the opponent. This repeats with the strategy picking a single move and the opponent adding all legal moves except that, at later opponent passes, we don't need to look at moves that return to a position reached at an earlier pass, since such a move cannot help show the strategy does not draw.

Picking a move is not applying a strategy, since it's compulsory to make a move. So to you, the strategy is picking a move. That is all.

A strategy is an algorithm that determines what move to play in every position that is reached. A deterministic strategy can be a list of positions and moves or a program that maps positions to moves. So a strategy is no more than a list of examples of picking a move.

You are right to point out that when developing a strategy, we can't tell the heuristics will work. If they don't, it's back to square one to develop better heuristics and start going through the passes from the starting position once again.

The way in which @tygxc misses the point is by thinking that by confidently believing some of the opponent moves are bad based on generalisation of imprecise rules that are known to sometimes fail, they can be ignored. This sort of "solution" is for players, not researchers.

The entire point is that chess cannot be solved, at least until better algorithms are developed. You know that and I know that. MAR knows it. tygxc doesn't and it seems that no amount of explanation will convince him. I doubt he reads the criticism, except comments by new people, so he can post his "Mr S says" spiel, which is copy-pasted..
It's nice to be able to simply agree.

Never mind, you also fail to justify a lot of your beliefs but you're still happy with them.
Do draw attention to an example. It is important to be clear about what is vague (like the above bit about the number of positions reached being very large) and what is clear but left unproven (like the fact about more than half of positions having value >= 0.5)

Wigan is known to be ...

This is correct, but I think we all understand a valid way to a solution (apart from practicality of resources) is to use heuristics (eg Stockfish evaluations based on incomplete analysis) to arrive a strategy.

...

Not true, I don't.

I've just posted a king and rook v king position where SF15 gives four bum attempts at a move. I don't understand that that approach will eventually converge to a solution.

I think the kind of heuristics that van den Herik was talking about were the kind of heuristics that Allis included in his connect4 solution which were perfectly valid and proven techniques that could be used in particular situations. Distinct in kind from Stockfish (or even @tygxc) thinks so.

This is correct, but I think we all understand a valid way to a solution (apart from practicality of resources) is to use heuristics (eg Stockfish evaluations based on incomplete analysis) to arrive a strategy.

...

Not true, I don't.

I've just posted a king and rook v king position where SF15 gives four bum attempts at a move. I don't understand that that approach will eventually converge to a solution.

I think the heuristics that van den Herik was talking about were the kind of heuristics that Allis included in his connect4 solution which were perfectly valid and proven techniques that could be used in particular situations. Distinct in kind from: Stockfish (or even @tygxc) thinks so.

I'm from non Wigan.