Yes, I was going to draw attention to that distinction, but edited it out.
But it was unforgiveable not to be precise in saying "most stalemates would become losses" or "all stalemates where the player has a move which would otherwise be legal but moves into check would become losses". So kudos for taking me to task for that. 
It's almost the same game if the purpose is to capture the king. The reason it's not is that stalemate would become a win.
I never could understand this supposed difference. The game ends when the king is attacked and has no means of escape. Probably for historical reasons, the king is never removed from the board. The game ends when either king is attacked and has no means of escape.
Stalemate cannot be a win for either side because the rules state that each side makes alternate moves. In a stalemate, that's impossible so the game ends inconclusively because neither king is attacked and the game cannot progress. It really is quite simple. Like my mind. Clear and simple. 
It's almost the same game if the purpose is to capture the king. The reason it's not is that stalemate would become a win.
I never could understand this supposed difference. The game ends when the king is attacked and has no means of escape. Probably for historical reasons, the king is never removed from the board. The game ends when either king is attacked and has no means of escape.
Stalemate cannot be a win for either side because the rules state that each side makes alternate moves. In a stalemate, that's impossible so the game ends inconclusively because neither king is attacked and the game cannot progress. It really is quite simple. Like my mind. Clear and simple.
Yes. The presumption is to remove the rule that you are not allowed to be in check after a move (this is necessary to make it possible for the king to be captured) and to permit the capture of the king (not actually a new rule since the possibility cannot arise in normal chess).
After this all stalemates where the side to move has a move which would be legal but moves into check become losses (because the move can be made and the opponent then captures the king) but, as MARattigan correctly pointed out, stalemates where the side to move has no legal move, even one that would move into check, remain draws unless you add a further rule (that not having a legal moves loses. Or that this wins!).
Thanks for explaining it clearly. I never paid attention to proposed alterations in the rules of chess. I couldn't see a situation arising, where it would be thought helpful or necessary and where there would also be a consensus. Such rule changes do seem to appeal to weak players and those whose attention deficit is worsened in situations where there's no positive result.
I imagine that traditional deference to monarchs caused the rule that's in place. Any alteration may appeal more to the inmates of more barbarous countries than ours, such as Russia and France.
Yes, I favour Putin being captured rather than merely checkmated. And then melted down and turned into something useful.
Yes, I favour Putin being captured rather than merely checkmated. And then melted down and turned into something useful.
ladies' purses?
Summary
Weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined
to achieve the game-theoretic value against any opposition. [1]
The game-theoretic value of a game is the outcome when all participants play optimally.[1]
Optimal play is play without errors.
An error (?) is a move that changes a game from drawn to lost, or from won to drawn.[2]
A blunder or double error (??) changes a game from won to lost.
A strategy can be moves like Checkers,[3] or rules like Connect Four,[4] or a combination.
It is beneficial to incorporate knowledge into game solving programs.[1]
Chess knowledge can be acquired from the Laws of Chess only. [5]
The objective of Chess is to checkmate the opponent.[6]
A direct attack on the king can succeed only if the opponent does not play optimally.
Queening a pawn is more feasible to achieve checkmate.
We know from gambits that 3 tempi in the initial position are worth 1 pawn.[7]
1 tempo in the initial position is not enough to win: a pawn can queen, a tempo not.
Millions of human & engine games confirm that Chess is a draw.
In the last 10 ICCF world championship finals: 1469 games = 1177 draws + 292 decisive.[8]
Of the 1177 draws 1140 are perfect games with optimal play from both sides.
Starting from the 10^44 legal positions [9] none of the 56011 legal positions in a sample of 1 million can result from optimal play by both sides. Gourion’s 10^37 [10] is a better estimate, but In a sample of 10000 [11] none can result from optimal play either. That leaves 10^37 / 10000 = 10^33 positions. Multiply by 10 to include positions with 3 or 4 queens: 10^33 * 10 = 10^34.
Weakly solving Chess calls for a strategy, i.e. one strategy only.[1]
On w white moves not w black responses each, but 1 black response only.
w * 1 = Sqrt (w * w)
Thus Sqrt (10^34) = 10^17 positions relevant to weakly solving Chess.
Checkers has been weakly solved with 10^14 positions [3] and Losing Chess with 10^9 positions.[12] Checkers has been solved with 19 of the 300 openings: 200 transpositions and 81 pruned.
Cloud engines calculate a billion nodes / s.[13] Thus 3 such engines calculate in 5 years:
10^9 nodes / s / engine * 3 engines * 3600 s / h * 24 h / d * 365.25 d / a * 5 a = 4.4 * 10^17 nodes
A diagram is the location of the men on the board.
A position is a diagram + side to move + castling rights + en passant flag.[6]
A node is a position + evaluation + history.[13]
Thus 3 engines exhaust in 5 years all 10^17 relevant positions and weakly solve Chess.
Chess can be weakly solved in 5 years, but needs 3 million $ to hire 3 grandmasters and rent 3 engines.
'Give me five years, good assistants and the latest computers
- I will bring all openings to technical endgames and "close" chess.' - GM Sveshnikov [14]
References:
[1] Van den Herik https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0004370201001527
[2] Hübner, Twenty-five Annotated Games, Berlin, 1996, pp. 7–8.
[3] Schaeffer https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1144079
[4] Allis http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~fernau/DSL0607/Masterthesis-Viergewinnt.pdf
[5] McGrath et. al. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.09259.pdf
[6] FIDE Laws of Chess https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018
[7] Capablanca A Primer of Chess https://archive.org/details/aprimerofchess/page/n47/mode/2up
[8] ICCF WC Finals https://www.iccf.com/tables
[9] Tromp Ranking of Chess positions https://github.com/tromp/ChessPositionRanking
[10] Gourion https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.09386.pdf
[11] Tromp https://github.com/tromp/ChessPositionRanking/blob/noproms/sortedRnd10kFENs
[12] Watkins https://magma.maths.usyd.edu.au/~watkins/LOSING_CHESS/LCsolved.pdf
[13] NPS - What are the "Nodes per Second" in Chess Engine Analysis
https://chessify.me/blog/nps-what-are-the-nodes-per-second-in-chess-engine-analysis
[14] Sveshnikov https://e3e5.com/article.php?id=1467
Weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined to achieve the game-theoretic value against any opposition.
(Correct emphasis).
Summary
Weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined
to achieve the game-theoretic value against any opposition. [1]
The game-theoretic value of a game is the outcome when all participants play optimally.[1]
Optimal play is play without errors.
An error (?) is a move that changes a game from drawn to lost, or from won to drawn.[2]
A blunder or double error (??) changes a game from won to lost.
A strategy can be moves like Checkers,[3] or rules like Connect Four,[4] or a combination.
It is beneficial to incorporate knowledge into game solving programs.[1]
Chess knowledge can be acquired from the Laws of Chess only. [5]
The objective of Chess is to checkmate the opponent.[6]
A direct attack on the king can succeed only if the opponent does not play optimally.
Queening a pawn is more feasible to achieve checkmate.
We know from gambits that 3 tempi in the initial position are worth 1 pawn.[7]
1 tempo in the initial position is not enough to win: a pawn can queen, a tempo not.
Millions of human & engine games confirm that Chess is a draw.
In the last 10 ICCF world championship finals: 1469 games = 1177 draws + 292 decisive.[8]
Of the 1177 draws 1140 are perfect games with optimal play from both sides.
Starting from the 10^44 legal positions [9] none of the 56011 legal positions in a sample of 1 million can result from optimal play by both sides. Gourion’s 10^37 [10] is a better estimate, but In a sample of 10000 [10] none can result from optimal play either. That leaves 10^37 / 10000 = 10^33 positions. Multiply by 10 to include positions with 3 or 4 queens: 10^33 * 10 = 10^34.
Weakly solving Chess calls for a strategy, i.e. one strategy only.[1]
On w white moves not w black responses each, but 1 black response only.
w * 1 = Sqrt (w * w)
Thus Sqrt (10^34) = 10^17 positions relevant to weakly solving Chess.
Checkers has been weakly solved with 10^14 positions [3] and Losing Chess with 10^9 positions.[12] Checkers has been solved with 19 of the 300 openings: 200 transpositions and 81 pruned.
Cloud engines calculate a billion nodes / s.[13] Thus 3 such engines calculate in 5 years:
10^9 nodes / s / engine * 3 engines * 3600 s / h * 24 h / d * 365.25 d / a * 5 a = 4.4 * 10^17 nodes
A diagram is the location of the men on the board.
A position is a diagram + side to move + castling rights + en passant flag.[6]
A node is a position + evaluation + history.[13]
Thus 3 engines exhaust in 5 years all 10^17 relevant positions and weakly solve Chess.
Chess can be weakly solved in 5 years, but needs 3 million $ to hire 3 grandmasters and rent 3 engines.
'Give me five years, good assistants and the latest computers
- I will bring all openings to technical endgames and "close" chess.' - GM Sveshnikov [14]
You weren't doing too badly up until this irrelevant comment. Why's it irrelevant? It's an empty boast.
References:
A more or less random selection of published works is not required. Your numbers do not work .... you have no idea of the computing requirements of a single position, which could easily be trillions of nodes at a very conservative estimate.
Pre-selecting only a limited number of opening possibilities invalidates any claim to have "solved" chess. Certainly, should such an enterprise find a forced win for either side, that would be a valid starting point for a more thorough evaluation of that strategy, following all the lines that limiting the starting point to ICCF draws and looking at the lines that the committee of GMs decided to ignore along the way. Eliminating well over 1/2 the possibilities eliminates any claim to a definitive proof.
Tbh it probably leaves a pragmatic one but pragmatism also accomodates the word "probably".
@6513
"should such an enterprise find a forced win for either side"
++ That is impossible. As explained Chess is a draw.
"Eliminating well over 1/2 the possibilities eliminates any claim to a definitive proof."
++ Eliminating possibilities that are proven worse is allowed.
1 a4 cannot be better than 1 e4 or 1 d4
1 Nh3 cannot be better than 1 Nf3
1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? loses to checkmate in 82 and does not need to be looked into
++ Let us assume I had 20 books for sale:
1) How to draw against 1 d4
2) How to draw against 1 e4
3) How to draw against 1 Nf3
4) How to draw against 1 c4
...
19) How to draw against 1 f3
20) How to win against 1 g4?
Books 1-4 may sell well, but nobody would buy books 17-20.
The same if I were to submit a paper to a scientific journal:
"Chess: 1. d4 black draws" would be accepted,
but "Chess: 1. g4? black wins" would be rejected for lack of relevance
It's almost the same game if the purpose is to capture the king. The reason it's not is that stalemate would become a win.
Forgive me for pointing it out but in stalemate, the king isn't captured, Elroch. That's a logical error. In stalemate, the king is confined to one square only but the king is safe.
Chesskingloop is also wrong.
@6513
"should such an enterprise find a forced win for either side"
++ That is impossible. As explained Chess is a draw.
"Eliminating well over 1/2 the possibilities eliminates any claim to a definitive proof."
++ Eliminating possibilities that are proven worse is allowed.
1 a4 cannot be better than 1 e4 or 1 d4
1 Nh3 cannot be better than 1 Nf3
1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? loses to checkmate in 82 and does not need to be looked into
++ Let us assume I had 20 books for sale:
1) How to draw against 1 d4
2) How to draw against 1 e4
3) How to draw against 1 Nf3
4) How to draw against 1 c4
...
19) How to draw against 1 f3
20) How to win against 1 g4?
Books 1-4 may sell well, but nobody would buy books 17-20.
The same if I were to submit a paper to a scientific journal:
"Chess: 1. d4 black draws" would be accepted,
but "Chess: 1. g4? black wins" would be rejected for lack of relevance
This is complete nonsense. You should answer my points because I focus and you could learn how to. However, you would have to drop your pretension that you're aways right. You're occasionally right in some points only and, often, not in others. The same as most people.
It's almost the same game if the purpose is to capture the king. The reason it's not is that stalemate would become a win.
Forgive me for pointing it out but in stalemate, the king isn't captured, Elroch. That's a logical error. In stalemate, the king is confined to one square only but the king is safe.
Chesskingloop is also wrong.
If the rule against playing a move that would permit the king to be captured were removed (essential in order to make capturing the king possible at all), the larger class of statemates would have a legal move which would then allow the capture of the king.
The smaller class of stalemates (I doubt one has ever been seen in competitive play) would still have no legal move.
It's almost the same game if the purpose is to capture the king. The reason it's not is that stalemate would become a win.
Forgive me for pointing it out but in stalemate, the king isn't captured, Elroch. That's a logical error. In stalemate, the king is confined to one square only but the king is safe.
Chesskingloop is also wrong.
If the rule against playing a move that would permit the king to be captured were removed (essential in order to make capturing the king possible at all), the larger class of statemates would have a legal move which would then allow the capture of the king.
The smaller class of stalemates (I doubt one has ever been seen in competitive play) would still have no legal move.
You mentioned that before but you can't move into check, which is different from someone putting you in check. I'm sure the rules have historical, moral significance.
Some people seem not to like stalemate and they think it shouldn't exist. I think that would make the game less interesting and less complex.
As I said, to consider any variant of chess where the king can be captured, the essential first step is to change the rules so that it is possible to reach a position where the king can be captured. The natural way to do this is to remove the rule that moves doing this are illegal (this rule primarily protecting players against the most heinous of errors, to leave the king in mortal danger).
(Aside: it used to be traditional not only to say "check" to warn a player of a threat to their king, but also "gardez" warning of an attack on the queen. )
@6513
"should such an enterprise find a forced win for either side"
++ That is impossible. As explained Chess is a draw.
"Eliminating well over 1/2 the possibilities eliminates any claim to a definitive proof."
++ Eliminating possibilities that are proven worse is allowed.
Exactly the kind of pre-judgements that I maintain makes any "solution" reached thereby entirely unconvincing. If the goal in "solving chess" is to discover whether the game can be won by force by either player from the starting position against all possible counterplay, your method is inadequate. Simply declaring that vast numbers of possible lines "are proven worse" without any attempt to prove that is nonsensical.
It's almost the same game if the purpose is to capture the king. The reason it's not is that stalemate would become a win.
Not always
(You cannot queen a tempo, but an extra pawn is enough to win. - Confucius.)