Chess will never be solved, here's why

Page 1:

Utter nonsense about what solving a game means.

Page 310:

Discussion about international trade 3000 years ago.

     I'm sure you know more about British history than I do. I'm not familiar with a lot of the ancient history you mention, though I do notice that different archeologists and historians have different opinions. 

     Archeologists at the British Natural History Museum believe that the "Beaker People" who came to the British Isles were migrants from the steppes of Asia who had settled in Central Europe, adopted the Beaker culture (that originated in Iberia) and came to Britain around 2500 BC. Professor David Reich of Harvard led a massive DNA study that showed the newcomers almost entirely wiped out the earlier inhabitants. (summary published in Nature magazine) 

     Celtic culture probably started developing in northern Europe before 1000 BC, but the oldest archeological evidence comes from around 700 BC in Hallstadt Austria. (see Encyclopedia Britannica) Those Celts, living in modern Bavaria-to-Bohemia, were some of the first North Europeans to enter the Iron Age, and they quickly became masters of their kinsmen. They invaded Italy (where they occupied the Po valley and the north end of the peninsula) and Greece (repulsed after plundering expeditions, a large group settled in Anatolia).  

     Further north, a longer Celtic mass migration from (modern) France into Britain (1000-800 BC)  brought enough new blood into the islands to make the DNA mix about 50/50 (previously mentioned study). These Celts most likely became closely linked with their continental kinsmen by the Hallstadt people. When the Romans came to Britain they called the inhabitants of Southwest England Volcae, the word they used for all who spoke Celtic languages, because they had the same language and culture as the Celts they knew in Gaul.

     Julius Caesar made a treaty with these people, and they were the ones that Emperor Claudius made the first Britons to be conquered and brought into the Roman Empire. Knowing how imprecise the Romans were about everything outside of money and power, they probably just called everyone in England Celts, but there were certainly plenty of Celts in the population of the island.

     Interesting as all this might be, and recognizing that varied theories concerning the ethnicity of prehistoric Britons, elaborately constructed on little substantial evidence, often contradict each other, it seems clear to me that at the time of Phoenician contact with people from Britain (1800-550 BC) there were no Welsh-speakers around to join any Phoenician expedition to America and leave descendants whose speech Welshmen could understand some 2000 or more years later.

@6191

"Page 1: Utter nonsense about what solving a game means.
Page 310: Discussion about international trade 3000 years ago."
++ Yes, trolls have been ridiculing and then spamming off-topic again. Back on topic.

Weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined
to achieve the game-theoretic value against any opposition.
The game-theoretic value of a game is the outcome when all participants play optimally.

A strategy can be moves like Checkers, or a set of rules like Connect Four, or a combination.

There is ample evidence that the game theoretic value of Chess is a draw.

There is inductive evidence from millions of human and engine games, especially from the ICCF world championship, with games > 99% sure to be optimal play from both sides.

There is also a deductive argument.
To win a game 1 pawn needs to queen.
3 tempi in the initial position are worth 1 pawn.
'Should the opponent offer any material, even a Pawn, which in your estimation you may capture without danger, it is advisable to take the offered piece, even if as a result full development is retarded for one or two moves. If as a result of the capture full development will be retarded more than two moves, then it is doubtful whether the capture should be made. It might be risked with the White pieces but never with the Black, except on very rare occasions.' 
- Capablanca
1 tempo in the initial position is not enough to win.
Chess is a draw.

Strongly solved is being used for a game for which
such a strategy has been determined for all legal positions.
For Chess this means a 32-men table base with 10^44 legal positions,
thus 10^44 nanoseconds of time and 10^44 bits of storage, not feasible now.
That leaves only weakly solving as feasible with 10^17 relevant positions, estimated in 2 ways.

1. Top down. Starting from the 10^44 legal positions none of the 56011 legal positions of a sample of 1 million can result from optimal play by both sides. A better estimate is Gourion's 10^37. In a sample of 1000 none can result from optimal play by both sides either. That leaves 10^32 sensible positions. Checkers has been weakly solved with 10^14 positions and Losing Chess with 10^9 positions. By analogy that leaves 10^17 positions relevant for weakly solving Chess.
2. Bottom up. Consider analysis with width w = 4 (derived from AlphaZero) and depth d = 39 average from ICCF WC games. First assume no transpositions for an upper bound U of
   U = 1 + w + w² + w³ + ... + w^d = (w^(d + 1) - 1) / (w - 1) = (4^40 - 1) / (4 - 1) = 4*10^23
   Now assume full transpositions for a lower bound L of
   L = 1 + w/1! + w²/2! + w³/3! + ... = e^w = e^4 = 54
   The lower bound is much too low and the upper bound is much too high.
   For an estimate E take the geometric mean of both:
   E = Sqrt (L * U) = Sqrt (54 * 4*10^23) = 4.7 * 10^12
   Thus 10^17 is reasonable with margin.

Cloud engines calculate a billion positions / s. Thus 3 such engines calculate in 5 years:
10^9 positions / s / engine * 3 engines * 3600 s / h * 24 h / d * 365.25 d / a * 5 a = 4.4 * 10^17
Thus 3 engines exhaust in 5 years all 10^17 relevant positions and weakly solve Chess.

That confirms what GM Sveshnikov said:
'Give me five years, good assistants and the latest computers
- I will bring all openings to technical endgames and "close" chess.'

The obstacle is money: 3 million $ to hire 3 (ICCF) (grand)masters and rent 3 cloud engines.

p310: Utter nonsense about what solving a game means.

I think people were just filling in time waiting for you to justify your calculation of SF's error rates by applying it to the games here where we can check.

So, a deductive argument whose first tenet is something which all chess players know is not true? Something which you could have learnt from #6185 that pointed out this glaring error (instead of downvoting it without understanding it).

Alternatively, a reference to any version of the rules of chess would help avoid such mistakes.

I believe that @tygxc is now downvoting contributions by almost every other contributor to this forum (as an inferior alternative to learning from them). Others should show the true balance of opinion.

@6196
"a reference to any version of the rules of chess"
++ Laws of Chess: https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018 
'1.4 The objective of each player is to place the opponent’s king ‘under attack’ in such a way that the opponent has no legal move.
1.4.1 The player who achieves this goal is said to have ‘checkmated’ the opponent’s king and to have won the game. Leaving one’s own king under attack, exposing one’s own king to attack and also ’capturing’ the opponent’s king is not allowed.
1.4.2 The opponent whose king has been checkmated has lost the game.'
How can you checkmate your opponent's king? A direct attack can succeed against a weaker player, but when both players are strong, an endgame is inevitable. In that endgame the aim is to queen a pawn.

Obviously what Ushenina did wrong in this position.

If she'd only queened her pawn here instead of 82.Bd5.

@tygxc, please confirm that you have at least a little objectivity by acknowledging that a game of chess can be won without queening a pawn. This is no concession and has no cost.

Alternatively, if you wish to indicate a complete lack of objectivity and pathological disconnect from reality, you can do so by downvoting this post.

@6200

"a game of chess can be won without queening a pawn"
++ Yes, among weaker players direct attacks often succeed. When both players play well,
an endgame is inevitable and in an endgame the aim is to queen a pawn.
Yes, KR, KBB, KBN and KNN vs. KP can checkmate without a queen, but those are rare too.
If those occur, it usually results from the threat of queening a pawn.
The objective of each player is to checkmate.
The strategy to achieve that against opposition is to queen a pawn.
'Pawns are the soul of chess' - Philidor

"Yes, KR, KBB, KBN and KNN vs. KP can checkmate without a queen, but those are rare too."

I think you might have missed one.

@6198

"1.4 The objective of each player is to place the opponent’s king ‘under attack’ in such a way that the opponent has no legal move.
1.4.1 The player who achieves this goal is said to have ‘checkmated’ the opponent’s king and to have won the game. Leaving one’s own king under attack, exposing one’s own king to attack and also ’capturing’ the opponent’s king is not allowed.
1.4.2 The opponent whose king has been checkmated has lost the game."

++ The checkmate rule plays no role in weakly solving chess.
 In none of the perfect games we have was the checkmate rule invoked.

tygxc wrote:

++ The checkmate rule plays no role in weakly solving chess.

In truth, checkmate being the objective of the game, it plays a central and crucial role in weakly solving chess. Even if chess is a draw, avoiding getting checkmated is the fundamental objective of both players. This (obviously) depends on the checkmate rule.

The results in a tablebase are entirely the consequence of what forced checkmates exist. A draw is the lack of existence of a forced checkmate (respecting whatever ruleset is in operation). This determines all the positions that need to be avoided by a player trying to achieve a draw.

Er, no - that was me. I just made it ridiculous enough to pass for @tygxc.

He's posted the same thing about 27 times regarding the 50 move rule.

Clearly my parody was too close to its target.

I find it annoying that in the time I've "known" him, he has virtually never credited anyone with making a good point even if it supports some of his ideas, not every one of which is bad. Consequently I see no problem in ignoring his pleas to stay on topic ... as if it makes any difference to him. We may as well be talking about Peruvian jungles.

"Cloud engines calculate a billion positions / s"

How many digital operations are there in calculating a "position?" About 10^17 maybe?

Logically, a position is the entire initial chess position divided by a small factor to account for number of moves made. It's still a vast number of operations. Logically, you can't calculate any one position without "solving" most of chess.

tygxc doesn't even understand that and unfortunately, others haven't been clear enough, so that onlookers like Mike_Kalish, who says he tries to follow without much understanding, don't even know who's "winning".

It's been won about 10^17 times: hence Peruvian jungles.

You got it just right. Seemed (and looked in your post) just like a quote from him.

Guys stop with this forum already

Are you including all human players, or are you completely unaware of all games that have been won by a successful (often sacrificial) attack on the king?

Alekhine played a checkmate on the board against Bogoljubov after a brilliant kingside attack as black in the 1929 world championship match.