Chess will never be solved, here's why

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HurtU
Optimissed wrote:
HurtU wrote:
donkey wrote:

tablebases solved the endgame

That's a good point. If there is the capability of exhaustively solving chess for 7 pieces - one would think that it's theoretically possible to solve it for 32 pieces, especially if those 32 pieces all start from the same position.

That's been discussed extensively. It isn't possible and never will be at current or projected computing speeds. Billions of years .... at least.


But if the question is simply: Can chess be solved?
The answer is: Yes.

Then, the next question: Will it take a billion years?

Perhaps. But what if we showed a cellphone to somebody during the 17th century? If they didn't burn you as a witch first, they wouldn't believe that such technology would be possible for "a billion years" if at all.

MEGACHE3SE

optimissed its one thing to call someone's bs, but its another thing entirely to start bullying and being all around cringe.  u r starting to be the latter.

tygxc

@7773

"there is no reason to take the square root"
++ There is. On move 1 white has 20 legal moves, black has 20 legal responses, that gives 20 * 20 = 400 legal positions after move 1. Weakly solving only calls for 1 black move to draw, thus only 20 * 1 = 20 = Sqrt (400) relevant positions after move 1 to weakly solve Chess.

Likewise after d moves i.e. 2d ply and w candidate moves that do not transpose there are w^(2d) legal positions of which only w^d = Sqrt (w^(2d)) are relevant to weakly solving Chess.
That is where the square root comes from.

tygxc

@7784

"is any way that white (or black) can win by force from the starting position no matter what the other side does, or whether the game will be drawn if neither makes the smallest mistake"
++ Chess is a draw.
Millions of human and engine games show that, especially draws from the ICCF World Championship finals. The first move advantage called the initiative is only one tempo, not enough to win. A pawn can queen, a tempo cannot.

tygxc

@7786

"Then, the next question: Will it take a billion years?"
++ Weakly solving chess takes 5 years.
3 cloud engines of 10^9 nodes/s can exhaust the 10^17 relevant positions in 5 years.

tygxc

@7782

"define what it means to solve chess?"

'weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined to achieve the game-theoretic value against any opposition' - Prof. van den Herik

tygxc

@7778

"If there is the capability of exhaustively solving chess for 7 pieces - one would think that it's theoretically possible to solve it for 32 pieces"
++ That would be strongly solving Chess to a 32-men table base, but that would require all 10^44 legal positions, which would take billions of years and 10^44 bit of storage.

MEGACHE3SE
Optimissed wrote:
MEGACHE3SE wrote:

optimissed its one thing to call someone's bs, but its another thing entirely to start bullying and being all around cringe.  u r starting to be the latter.


Some people try to bully. As I remember, you were the one who boasted that he refuted tygxc's nonsense all by himself and that you weren't surprised that others couldn't. That take a certain amount of cringeworthiness to accomplish. You were, in fact, trying to bully everyone here. A number of people have been trying to bully me for quite a while and I've decided that enough is enough UN to adopt the strongest stance because by now I'm quite sure that those who have been criticising my ideas and insisting that they are right and I'm wrong are doing so incorrectly. They make too many mistakes, don't seem to understand the subject anymore than I do and place far too much faith in experts who are half a century out of date. Yet they won't accept any criticism at all.

Ive went quite a few pages back and I don't see anyone actually explaining where txgxc's math was wrong, although feel free to point it out. simply saying 'its 10^34" isnt enough.  it needs to be explicitly why u cant take the square root of that.  all of this 'strong vs weak' solving is a red herring, and, if anything those definitions as to what constitutes 'strong' vs 'weak' solving should have been accepted because those definitions actually hurt txgxc's position.  

you are also doing a tu quoque fallacy with regards to bullying, but i digress.

tygxc

@7775

"your 10^17 calculation relies on a pre existing algorithm that creates the best move for ____ on any given position"
++ No, the calculation does not rely on any evaluation algorithm to find the best move.
Many here still do not understand that.
It relies on the 7-men endgame table base and on its absolute evaluations draw / win / loss.
If a calculated series of moves reaches a 7-men endgame table base draw,
then that validates all black moves as fit to achieve the game-theoretic value of the draw.
As for the white moves, all reasonable alternatives need to be explored, not just one.

MEGACHE3SE
tygxc wrote:


++ No, the calculation does not rely on any evaluation algorithm to find the best move.

yeah you do need the best move, literally by definition.  

how are you supposed to figure out what black's position is then if you dont have whites move?

tygxc

@7796

"I don't see anyone actually explaining where txgxc's math was wrong" ++ It is right

"simply saying its 10^34 isnt enough" ++ The 10^34 comes from Gourion's 10^37, multiplied by 10 to allow 3 or 4 queens, and divided by 10,000 as a random sample of 10,000 Gourion positions showed none that can result from optimal play by both sides.

"why u cant take the square root of that"
++ We can. That is the essential difference between weakly and strongly solving: one versus all black moves.

"all of this 'strong vs weak' solving is a red herring"
++ The difference is essential and makes all the difference between 5 years and billions of years, but many here still do not understand that. Checkers has been weakly solved, not strongly.

"those definitions as to what constitutes 'strong' vs 'weak' solving should have been accepted"
++ Indeed, definitions by the world authority on game solving should be accepted.

tygxc

@7798

"you do need the best move"
++ No, I do not. For the one black move the justification comes from reaching a 7-men endgame table base. For white all reasonable moves need to be explored, not just one best move.

MEGACHE3SE
tygxc wrote:

++ We can. That is the essential difference between weakly and strongly solving: one versus all black moves.

how do you figure out which move it is?

Ministerh4i

Lmao

MEGACHE3SE
tygxc wrote:

@7796

"I don't see anyone actually explaining where txgxc's math was wrong" ++ It is right

"simply saying its 10^34 isnt enough" ++ The 10^34 comes from Gourion's 10^37, multiplied by 10 to allow 3 or 4 queens, and divided by 10,000 as a random sample of 10,000 Gourion positions showed none that can result from optimal play by both sides.

"why u cant take the square root of that"
++ We can. That is the essential difference between weakly and strongly solving: one versus all black moves.

"all of this 'strong vs weak' solving is a red herring"
++ The difference is essential and makes all the difference between 5 years and billions of years, but many here still do not understand that. Checkers has been weakly solved, not strongly.

Checkers had a simplification algorithm/position.  chess, at the moment, does not.  without a simplification algorithm/position, weak versus strong solving are, for our purposes, essentially identical.

you also misread my post.  the "simply saying 10^34" is the proposed response to your math error, which I was explaining is not sufficient in disproving it.

MEGACHE3SE
Optimissed wrote:
tygxc wrote:

@7775

"your 10^17 calculation relies on a pre existing algorithm that creates the best move for ____ on any given position"
++ No, the calculation does not rely on any evaluation algorithm to find the best move.
Many here still do not understand that.


Still do not understand? After what explanation? I don't see one.

An evaluation algorithm is an absolute essential and none exists that's fully reliable.

It relies on the 7-men endgame table base and on its absolute evaluations draw / win / loss.

That's an absolute equivalent to calculating all the way to checkmate. Since the seven man table base was an easy project compared with this, then logically, relying on calculating to that doesn't save any time worth speaking of. Also, it's such a massive amount of calculation that it's necessary to make evaluations on lines in order to cut most of them out and so an algorithm is an absolute necessity.

You've changed your story entirely, since a couple of months ago. You were relying on the Stockfish algorithm, which is obviously incapable of the job but still you were relying on it.

 


If a calculated series of moves reaches a 7-men endgame table base draw,
then that validates all black moves as fit to achieve the game-theoretic value of the draw.
As for the white moves, all reasonable alternatives need to be explored, not just one.

But you wouldn't even know if they were the best (optimal) moves. How could you possibly untangle them?

 

See?  u can refute without being a dingus.  

btw i am also sometimes a dingus so i will try to not get defensive if u call me out in the future.  i cant criticize ur tone without putting myself open to criticisem

rishabh11great

In order for chess to be solved, an extremely strong engine needs to analyse an incredible 10^120 different games (estimation), a number higher than the number of atoms in the universe.

 Secondly, you never know if the present engine's recommendations are truly the absolute 'best' moves that are possible. Anyway, the progress chess engines have made is rather scary.  But, I don't know as chess with less than 7 pieces has already been solved, thanks to tablebases. We really should hope that chess never gets solved.

tygxc

@7801

"how do you figure out which move it is?"
++ For black take the top 1 Stockfish engine move after enough calculation time and do not worry if it is correct or not. If it is correct then it will ultimately lead to a 7-men endgame table base draw and that validate  all black moves as fit to achieve the game-theoretic value of a draw.
If it is not correct, then some white move will lead to a 7-men endgame table base loss.

Likewise for white take the top w Stockfish engine moves. As previously calculated the table base exact move will be among the top w = 4 engine moves at 17 s/move on a 10^9 nodes/s engine with 1 error in 10^20 positions, i.e. no error in the 10^17 relevant positions.

MEGACHE3SE

"Likewise for white take the top w Stockfish engine moves"

okay but what if all of the top stockfish moves are wrong?

MEGACHE3SE
tygxc wrote:

@7801

"how do you figure out which move it is?"
++ For black take the top 1 Stockfish engine move after enough calculation time and do not worry if it is correct or not. If it is correct then it will ultimately lead to a 7-men endgame table base draw and that validate  all black moves as fit to achieve the game-theoretic value of a draw.
If it is not correct, then some white move will lead to a 7-men endgame table base loss.

Likewise for white take the top w Stockfish engine moves. As previously calculated the table base exact move will be among the top w = 4 engine moves at 17 s/move on a 10^9 nodes/s engine with 1 error in 10^20 positions, i.e. no error in the 10^17 relevant positions.

you are also making the assumption that black is not inherently winning, that hasnt been proven.