@4980
" that's exactly the word that @tygxc has used in his definitions"
Those are neither my definitions, nor those of wikipedia.
It are the definitions of Prof. Em. van den Herik, a prominence in the field.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0004370201001527
'Strategy' can refer to a set of moves, but also to a set of rules, or a combination of both.
Chess will never be solved, here's why
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@4979
"What is it exactly that you are posting?"
++ The output is the analysis of the succesive moves until a table base draw, or a prior 3-fold repetition or known draw. Look at the games as trunks of trees and the output are the branches.
"Which? It could affect any timescale." ++ The intent is to use 3 cloud engines of 10^9 nodes/s running 17 s/move. This would be equivalent to 3000 desktops of 10^6 nodes/s.
"cloud engines don't produce moves" ++ They do, just like an engine on a desktop does, but 1000 time faster.
"you need software" ++ E.g. Stockfish
"which cloud computer anyway?" ++ The one selected during procurement of the rental service during 5 years. It should be able to process 10^9 nodes/s. It is a matter of price, availability etc.
"When you say "previously shown" were you referring to my post"
++ No I was referring to my own calculation from AlphaZero autoplay.
"examples I posted where SF blows half a point with all its top 4 moves?"
++ Those are irrelevant KNN vs. KP that would be looked up in the table base long before they even appear. Besides you did not run your desktop for 4.7 h. If you want to test the result, then try a KRPP vs. KRP on your desktop and see for yourself that the table base exact move is always among the top 4 engine moves.
"When are you going to produce a usable description of your method?"
++ I have given it several times. Take an ICCF WC draw. Consider 3 alternatives to the last white move. Calculate these to either a table base draw, or a 3-fold repetition, or a known draw. The latter requires some human supervision but is not essential, it just saves time.
"You don't appear to have fixed which ICCF game we're talking about yet"
++ The good assistants take the set of all ICCF WC Finals draws and pick those that correspond to a certain repertoire. E.g. against 1 e4: 1...e5 2 Nf3 Nc6. Then games with 2...Nf6 or 1...c5 can be left out. Then those games are treated one after the other.
"When do you expect to decide on a definite first step? Will that be within five years?"
++ I do not know. It would cost 3 million $. That is the obstacle.
"Your example appears to be an agreed draw" ++ In a known drawn position: opposite colored bishop endgame, no chance to win for either side.
"so the alternatives will draw too" ++ Probably, but maybe there are ways to avoid the drawn opposite colored bishop endgame.
"No mention of a computer" ++ Of course the 3 computers serve to do that. 1 computer looks at 1 e4, 1 computer at 1 d4, and a 3rd computer at 1 c4 and 1 Nf3 lines that do not transpose.
"I could have sworn White has more first moves."
++ There are 20 first moves. I look at the 4 that oppose most to the draw. If they draw, then the 16 that oppose less to the draw will draw or lose as well.
Sep 18, 2022
0
#4904
MARattigan wrote:
Elroch wrote:
There is no solution that involves two-fold repetitions being involved on the path to anywhere but a draw.
It is like in real play. A player fishing for a solution gets to a two-fold repetition and realises he needs to change his strategy from that point. When the strategies are final, this no longer occurs - two strategies that reach a two-fold repetition will reach an n-fold repetition because they are fixed.
Perfectly understood.
But a solution is not the same as a process for finding a solution. The tablebase approach avoids any problems by associating any position with on ordered pair (b,n) where b is a basic rules position and n is an increasing distance from some objective and never repeating a "b".
SF doesn't. It happily moves into repeated positions whether it evaluates its position as positive or otherwise and whether it is actually winning or otherwise (which it doesn't know). So a process for solving chess using SF with a twofold repetition rule would not produce the same results as a process using a threefold repetition rule. The GUI is arbiter and would terminate games under a twofold repetition rule that would continue under a threefold repetition rule. SF has a triple rule avoidance routine that will fire in many circumstances.
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.
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. This is rather like the reverse of generating a tablebase.
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.
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. He also fails to justify a belief that the solution is small. The opponent being able to play large numbers of moves completely freely generates enormous numbers of positions. There is no guarantee it is as few as the square root of the number of legal positions, since it may take the first player many moves to get an irreversible move played, and there can be hundreds of irreversible moves. Long games can explore a lot of positions even with a small exponential factor (eg 2^100 is bigger than the number of legal positions).
It's also worth noting that the combination of all balanced positions and all positions where one side is winning is more than half of all legal positions.
Sep 18, 2022
0
#4905
tygxc wrote:
++ There are 20 first moves. I look at the 4 that oppose most to the draw. If they draw, then the 16 that oppose less to the draw will draw or lose as well.
Now it's all clear. You didn't mention previously that you had access to a chess oracle with perfect knowledge of the 32-piece tablebase that tells you which moves "oppose the draw best".
If only you had mentioned this before, no-one would have pointed out you are wrong.
@4986
"a chess oracle with perfect knowledge of the 32-piece tablebase that tells you which moves oppose the draw best"
++ That is accumulated human knowledge over centuries of play and analysis, logic, and corroborated by independent calculation with no other input but the Laws of Chess.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.09259
Figure 5 and figure 31.
It is logical that
1 a4 does not oppose more to the draw than 1 e4 or 1 d4.
1 Nh3 does not oppose more to the draw than 1 Nf3.
@4985
"this strategy has to deal with every legal move that the opposing side to a strategy could play"
The move must oppose to the draw. 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6 does not oppose. 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 and now neither 1 Nd4, 1 Nxe5, Ng5, Nh4, or Ng1 opposes to the draw.
"when developing a strategy, we can't tell the heuristics will work."
We know some heuristics and when they work and when not. That is one task of the good assistants. When in doubt, calculate? When no doubt, adjudicate a win (like a rook down with no compensation) or a draw (like an opposite colored bishop ending with no prospect to win).
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.
"This sort of "solution" is for players, not researchers."
This research paper recognises the use of knowledge as beneficial.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0004370201001527
"The opponent being able to play large numbers of moves completely freely" ++ Not completely freely: he must oppose to the draw or to a loss.
"it may take the first player many moves to get an irreversible move played" ++ ICCF games show otherwise: there is always a compelling reason to (re)capture or move a pawn.
"the combination of all balanced positions and all positions where one side is winning is more than half of all legal positions." ++ Only reachable drawn positions are of interest. Each pawn move and each capture renders huge numbers of positions unreachable. Most of the legal positions can never be reached by optimal play. E.g. the 3 random samples
https://github.com/tromp/ChessPositionRanking
tygxc wrote:
@4949
10^17 is a huge number, but it is finite. Chess is finite.
It is a huge number, but it doesn't relate to solving chess.
Sep 18, 2022
0
#4909
tygxc wrote:
@4986
"a chess oracle with perfect knowledge of the 32-piece tablebase that tells you which moves oppose the draw best"
++ That is accumulated human knowledge over centuries of play and analysis, logic, and corroborated by independent calculation with no other input but the Laws of Chess.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.09259
Figure 5 and figure 31.
It is logical that
1 a4 does not oppose more to the draw than 1 e4 or 1 d4.
1 Nh3 does not oppose more to the draw than 1 Nf3.
No, it is not "logical". It is inductive from incomplete evidence that is definitely not adequate to justify certainty.
Your permanent problem is that you don't understand that there is an enormous difference between a very high degree of confidence and logical certainty. The former can be wrong. The latter cannot.
Let me give you an example. Suppose you get a set of binary data from some sort of generator. It has as many digits as every position ever looked at in the game of chess. All of the digits are ones. How sure can you be that more of the data has no zeros?
If you say "certain", you haven't learnt to reason correctly.
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.
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.
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..
He also fails to justify a belief that the solution is small. The opponent being able to play large numbers of moves completely freely generates enormous numbers of positions. There is no guarantee it is as few as the square root of the number of legal positions, since it may take the first player many moves to get an irreversible move played, and there can be hundreds of irreversible moves. Long games can explore a lot of positions even with a small exponential factor (eg 2^100 is bigger than the number of legal positions).
It's also worth noting that the combination of all balanced positions and all positions where one side is winning is more than half of all legal positions.
Never mind, you also fail to justify a lot of your beliefs but you're still happy with them.
speedupthesurfer wrote:
Why don't we solve the goddamn lag before asking if chess can be "solved" ugh
Who is "we"? Nobody in this thread has access to chess.com's backend servers that I know of...
Sep 18, 2022
0
#4912
I think saying that chess can never be solved shows a distinct lack of imagination. Think about how fast technology is changing today. Do you really think that in 200 years, if the human race is not extinct by then, that our computer technology can't improve to the point that it could literally solve all chess positions? When you think big, think even bigger.
stopvacuuming wrote:
btickler wrote:
stopvacuuming wrote:
im just pointing out the almost funny sadness of it all... taking 5 seconds to do so is not equivalent to you guys writing essays also that was pretty funny elroch i cant lie
I am worried about all these schools nowadays where 2-3 paragraphs are given credit as an "essay" .
see the thing is theres actually hundreds of these 2-3 paragraphs going back and forth over such a pointless hypothetical topic so yeah i would say theyre essays, either way my point stands
It's because there is a lot of people who write a lot of nonsense. There are also people who can't understand a thing. It's just normal.
Sep 18, 2022
0
#4914
btickler wrote:
speedupthesurfer wrote:
Why don't we solve the goddamn lag before asking if chess can be "solved" ugh
Who is "we"? Nobody in this thread has access to chess.com's backend servers that I know of...
Who has lag?
I am only puzzled I have a 10 ms ping to chess.com, which is 3000 km at the speed of light, so can't be in the US.
I think there may be problems in the UK. The other day I needed to make 2 moves with 0.9 seconds leaft and I did it with 0.4 left. I didn't use premove. At other times I have 2.5 seconds lag. At others it loses the connection. I believe the latter happens in the US since I'm rarely losing any other connection, elsewhere. Definitely to to with c.c.
Wigan is known to be a mobile blackspot. I lose the connection if I walk to the back of the house but the walls are very thick. It means it's only coming from one direction. From the South West.
Sep 18, 2022
0
#4918
Optimissed wrote:
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.
He also fails to justify a belief that the solution is small. The opponent being able to play large numbers of moves completely freely generates enormous numbers of positions. There is no guarantee it is as few as the square root of the number of legal positions, since it may take the first player many moves to get an irreversible move played, and there can be hundreds of irreversible moves. Long games can explore a lot of positions even with a small exponential factor (eg 2^100 is bigger than the number of legal positions).
It's also worth noting that the combination of all balanced positions and all positions where one side is winning is more than half of all legal positions.
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)
A strategy is an algorithm that determines what move to play in every position that is reached.
Not precisely. We can say that we use a strategy of using an algorithm to determine moves. We can't say that the algorithm is the strategy.
And of course, we know that the algorithms we have are not accurate. Otherwise, tygxc would be partly right, when he claims that present-day algorithms are sufficient. Of course, he's badly wrong regarding time scale.
Your description of a strategy is inaccurate and also insufficient, since it's clear that the level of accuracy for solving, rather than playing chess is not reliable and a strategy based on unreliable algorithms is an incorrect strategy for solving.
^^ A lot of people aren't, here. You shouldn't criticise because English is a foreign language to you.
It isn't necessarily a different strategy, so the use of that word is incorrect. "Procedure" is correct; "strategy" is incorrect. Or you can use "move", for instance.
Referring to it as "strategy" is an aid to confusion and there's plenty of that here. It will be one reason why Elroch thinks that Games Theory applies to solving chess.