Chess will never be solved, here's why

A chess strategy is a decision process that suffices for all positions that can arise against any opposing play. i.e. it picks a move in every position that can arise when applying it.

I hope seeing the definition helps you.

@8072

"a strategy-stealing strategy for white. It would need to cover EVERY black response."
++ It is up to those that put forward chess being a black win as a plausible hypothesis to come up with evidence supporting that claim. For example 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 d5 being a black win. Then 1 Nf3 d5 2 g3 c5 3 d3 Nc6 4 d4 is a white win.
Whatever possible black wins the proponents of the black wins hypothesis come up with,
there is a corresponding strategy stealing by white that disproves it.
It is up to the proponents of black wins to come up with plausible black strategies.
Then the strategy stealing reduces those hypotheses ad absurdum.

So you think a winning strategy for checkers is "a good move". It is a shame you did not publish this before several years of computation was done.

There is no strategy stealing argument for chess, as authoritative works explain. 

@8049

"that doesnt work" ++ It does work.

"you prove absolutely nothing"
++ I outline how it can be done. I earlier proved only 10^17 positions are relevant to weakly solving chess and that present computers can exhaust these in 5 years.
Many here still fail to understand that.

@8053

"you also still assume that black is playing to draw and not win"
++ This is totally besides the question.

"literally by the second move you have a  false assumption" ++ There is no false assumption.

No, that meant that you had been discussing strategy stealing.

On reflection, this is an example of a mode of faulty thinking that is way too common. You said (exact words) "I don't even call it strategy stealing.". The only significance of what you call it is that it might stop people understanding it if you eccentrically choose not to use the standard term, as you indicate.

What matters are CONCEPTS. Words and phrases are just convenient ways to refer to concepts.

Here the concept is (what is known in established terminology as) strategy stealing, a clearly defined concept relating to a class of games where it can be proven the second player cannot have a winning strategy because (fundamentally) there is no zugzwang - any position plus an extra move has value (for the player who moves) at least as high as the same position without the extra move. This property means that if for every strategy for the second player, there is at least one strategy for the first player that achieves as good a result for the first player as the strategy for the second player does for him/her.  This implies the second player cannot have a winning strategy.

For there to be a strategy-stealing result for chess, it would be necessary to dodge all zugzwang positions. Most insightful people will see that it is a safe bet that this scuppers the possibility. Attempting to construct one helps to make this clear.

Examples of where this is easily seen to be so are tictactoe and connect4.

Once Again, I hit a Hundredth.

🎉

It got a thumbs up because it explains your misunderstandings and lack of ability to express yourself on many topics, and encapsulates your logical shortcomings quite succinctly.

    This encapsulates the problem with Sveshnikov's plan: the conclusion has been reached before the investigation begins. Eliminating the great majority of possibilities in order to focus on what the "experts" believe will lead to the conclusion they have predetermined cannot produce a credible result.

     This admits that it is impossible for your method to solve the game from the opening position, so we will arbitrarily start from a few selected positions with 20% of the pieces eliminated.

Very unlikely, Chess is most likely most complex at 32 men.

You've obviously read somewhere that the number of basic rules legal positions reaches a maximum at 26 men but overlooked the fact that you can have a limited number of distributions of material with 26 men in any one game. The number of basic rules positions with 32 men would be of the order of 10^8 or 10'9 times the number that can occur in any of those distributions.

To nit pick it needn't necessarily pick a move. It could pick a draw claim under the 50 move or triple repetition rules or the offer or acceptance of a draw or nothing at all if it's not your move.

It could also leave you free to pick from a selection of moves (as in a strategy that takes one of the best moves from Syzygy when available),

I would prefer: 

A game strategy for a player is a function from the set of game positions with values that are (possibly empty) sets of actions for that player that are legal under the rules.

Where a game position means simply a situation arising in a game.

Ahh, you've driven yourself back to the personal insults stage...the self-imposed break is usually not far behind...

@Optimissed, I appreciate the thumbs up from @btickler, a level-headed and detached analyst.

Please also note that while @tygxc may have introduced you to the term "strategy stealing", those of us who are more familiar with peer-reviewed and/or textbook work on solving games were already familiar with it. The normal reaction to learning of some terminology is to improve your technical vocabulary, not to either guess wrongly where it arose or to say you are going to obfuscate by refusing to use it. Note also that searching for information will usually help. Do it many times a day and many errors will be avoided.

Optimissed I would recommend u look into the proof for the game of "chomp"  

that actually hurts to read as a math student.  a statement is to be regarded as a possibility until it is explicitly proven to not be possible.  end of story.  I have NO burden of proof here.

txgyc 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy-stealing_argument#Chess