Chess will never be solved, here's why

@6129

"where the 50 move rule prevents a win"
++ The 50-moves rule plays no role in weakly solving chess.
A weak solution of Chess without the 50-moves rule is also a solution of Chess with the 50-moves rule. In none of the perfect games we have was the 50 moves rule invoked.

Also, engines are truly crappy at evaluating positions given 1 billionth of a second. (evaluating their legality alone in that time would be a challenge to specialised hardware like a 300 times faster version of Deep Blue 2's chips, and impossible with a state of the art general processor, never mind any sort of evaluation).  You need to evaluate every single one of the positions reachable by a legal move in order to select your magic "four best moves".

Having spent your 40 billionths of a second to evaluate the 40 legal moves, you have not even a good idea of which is best. For that you need to evaluate them to a reasonable depth unless you want to be wrong very often.

@6131

"evaluating positions given 1 billionth of a second"
++ They evaluate 1 billion positions per second.
https://chessify.me/blog/nps-what-are-the-nodes-per-second-in-chess-engine-analysis 

"You need to evaluate every single one of the positions reachable by a legal move in order to select your magic four best moves." ++ Yes, that takes 17 s.

"you need to evaluate them to a reasonable depth" ++ Yes: 17 s, that is 17 billion positions.

That's 17 seconds per position seen by the opponent of a strategy. 

Since half the (underestimated) 10^17 positions are seen by the opponent of a strategy, that is:

8.5 * 10^17 seconds, about 280 billion years.

I'm still following.....fascinated....intrigued....in awe. Epic debate and I don't know who's right, if anyone....although I find myself leaning one way or another occasionally. 

@6133

"that is: 8.5 * 10^17 seconds, about 280 billion years."
++ You are not good at arithmetic. There are only 10^17 positions relevant. The engine calculates a billion positions per second. That means 3 engines exhaust the 10^17 positions in 5 years.

I think @Elroch is probably finding that his arithmetic suffers a similar problem to my problem with Stockfish.

@6134

"how do apply your calculation to determine the game theoretic value"
++ You are confused.
The KRPP vs. KR drawn positions serve to check the thesis that the table base correct move is among the top 4 engine moves for the 10^9 positions/s engine running for 17 s with 1 error in 10^20 positions. As shown in these 6 examples the top 1 engine move is table base exact.

The game-theoretic value of a draw is determined from the 1469 ICCF WC games, that is the closest to perfect play we have: 1104 of those games are with optimal play from both sides.

The game-theoretic value of a draw also follows from a deductive argument. To win you need to queen a pawn, i.e. you need an advantage of 1 pawn or more. 3 tempi in the initial position are worth 1 pawn. 1 tempo in the initial position is not enough to win. You cannot queen a tempo.

"It doesn't contradict it."
++ Yes, that is right. You suggested some 7-men endgame might contradict it, but none did.

"You claim it's generally true" ++ Yes, for positions relevant to weakly solving Chess.

"you would need rather a lot of confirmatory examples to sustain the conjecture"
++ The thesis was extrapolated from the AlphaZero paper. That is what lends it credibility.

"you need only one counterexample to discredit it"
++ Yes: 'No number of experiments can prove me right, one can prove me wrong' - Einstein

"you'll find among the games I spent so much time preparing"
++ The 2 I posted did not contradict.
The KNN vs. KP is irrelevant: 5 men, not 7, not a draw, a known anomaly: an engine can only detect the checkmate if its calculation depth exceeds the distance to mate otherwise the engine is happy to win the pawn increasing its perceived advantage from +5 to +6, but spoiling the win.

Wait, hold on. You have proof that Father Christmas is a fake? What’s next, Bigfoot isn’t really a big blurry monster roaming the forest? 😉

I’m in agreement with you Mike. 

Extremely interesting, thanks!

That might be the first time in 6140 posts that two people have agreed on anything here.

There is a weak solution of Chess without the 50-moves rule that is also a solution of Chess with the 50-moves rule. You have not presented a method that will arrive at one.

It's certainly not true that any weak solution of Chess without the 50-moves rule is also a solution of Chess with the 50-moves rule.

You've so far produced only vague suggestions of a method that will arrive at neither (for logical reasons, not just because it won't be finished by teatime).

@6144

"There is a weak solution of Chess without the 50-moves rule that is also a solution of Chess with the 50-moves rule." ++ Yes indeed.

"a method that will arrive at one"
++ I have presented a method that arrives at both at the same time.
Start from a drawn ICCF WC game, e.g. this one.
https://www.iccf.com/game?id=1164320

It starts from the initial position and ends in a perpetual check i.e. a 3-fold repetition draw.
Analyse 3 alternatives for 71 Kh3. Do they draw too?
Analyse 3 alternatives for 70 Kg2. Do they draw too?
Analyse 3 alternatives for 69 Kh3. Do they draw too?
Analyse 3 alternatives for 68 Kh2. Do they draw too?
Continue like that until you meet another ICCF WC draw.
Then treat the other ICCF WC draws in the same way.

Then there is a strategy that draws for black gainst any white opposition and chess is weakly solved, with or without the 50-moves rule.

Prize competition

Find as many errors as possible in the quoted text.

The one who finds the most will receive a magnificent trophy.

The people who are discussing differences between solutions with and without the 50 move rule ought to get the basics in place first. They are obviously so confused in any case that discussions of with or without the 50 move rule are superfluous. They shouldn't be discussing it because they're confused at a deeper level and it takes more than one person to hold an argument which nis completely irrelevant. I'm aware that the 50 move rule does make a difference in a perdantic or puristic consideration of all the facets but really, when they talk about 

<<<Then there is a strategy that draws for black gainst any white opposition and chess is weakly solved, with or without the 50-moves rule.>>>

.... bearing in mind that it takes two at least to discuss this, when it should be obvious to anyone with an iota of intelligence that it isn't a strategy at all, unless you want to call playing good moves a strategy, this makes it clear that more than one person here doesn't know what they're talking about and that much of this discussion is therefore bogus.

There are only three obvious errors. I would say that the rest of it's ok but not, of course, as part of a deductive argiment. There were 3 logical errors.

OK I start with your game (which didn't end in a triple repetition) and follow your pseudocode..

The events in the game were

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 O-O 5.Bd3 d5 6.a3 Bxc3+ 7.bxc3 dxc4 8.Bxc4 c5 9.Nf3 Qc7 10.Be2 b6 11.O-O Bb7 12.Bb2 Nc6 13.c4 Rfd8 14.Rc1 Rac8 15.Re1 Ne7 16.Ne5 Ng6 17.Nd3 h6 18.Bf1 Qe7 19.Qe2 Rd7 20.dxc5 Be4 21.Rcd1 Bxd3 22.Rxd3 Rxd3 23.Qxd3 Qxc5 24.Qd4 Qc6 25.Rd1 Nf8 26.Be2 N8d7 27.h3 Qc7 28.Qd3 Nc5 29.Qc2 Rd8 30.Rd4 Rd7 31.Bf3 Rd8 32.h4 Rd7 33.Qd1 Ne8 34.h5 Nf6 35.g3 Qc8 36.Kg2 Qc7 37.Bc3 Ne8 38.Qb1 Nd6 39.Rg4 f5 40.Rd4 Nde4 41.Bb4 Nf6 42.Qd1 e5 43.Rxd7 Qxd7 44.Bd5+ Nxd5 45.cxd5 Ne4 46.d6 Qc6 47.Kg1 Nf6 48.a4 Kh7 49.Ba3 Nd7 50.Bb2 Qc4 51.f4 e4 52.Be5 a6 53.Bd4 Qd5 54.Qe2 b5 55.axb5 axb5 56.Qb2 Qxd6 57.Qxb5 Qe6 58.Kg2 Kh8 59.Kh3 Kg8 60.Qa5 Kh7 61.Qb5 Kh8 62.Qb4 Qa6 63.Bxg7+ Kxg7 64.Qe7+ Kg8 65.Qxd7 Qf1+ 66.Kh2 Qf2+ 67.Kh3 Qf1+ 68.Kh2 Qe2+ 69.Kh3 Qxh5+ 70.Kg2 Qe2+ 71.Kh3 Qg4+ Draw agreed

Now I take 71.Kh3 and look for the subroutine "Analyse 3 alternatives". No show. Does not compute.

Could do better.

You say "Then there is a strategy that draws for black gainst any white opposition".

There may be. I don't know and neither do you.

What's definitely true is your pseudocode doesn't output one.

If I'm playing Black, what does it tell me to play against 1.a4?

Back to the validity of your basic calculation, I invited you here to "Show it or shut it". You have done neither so far. Do you plan to?