Chess will never be solved, here's why

@8631

"He claims that engine evaluations are close to error-free."
++ A cloud engine of 10^9 nodes/ s running for 17 s/move,
or a desktop of 10^6 nodes/s running for 4.7 h make 1 error in 100,000 positions.
However, the solving method does not depend on that, it depends on reaching the 7-men endgame table base with its exact evaluation draw / win / loss.

Again, your one "error" in 100,000 claim is based on imperfect evaluations.  No engine knows definitively how many "errors" are in a chess game. 

Wonder away, it's about as fruitful as anything else you are spending your time on here.

@8644

"one error in 100,000 claim is based on imperfect evaluations"
++ Again, it is not based on evaluations.
It is based on extrapolation from statistical data on game results.
No need for imperfect or perfect evaluation.

Extrapolation of what statistical data, exactly?  Keep following the breadcrumbs back...

@8647

Figure 2

10,000 AlphaZero games 1 s / move: 11.8% decisive games
1,000 AlphaZero games 1 min / move: 2.1% decisive games

Extrapolating:
1 h / move: 2.1% * 2.1 / 11.8 = 0.37% decisive games
60 h / move: 0.37% * 2.1 / 11.8 = 0.067% decisive games

More time leads to less decisive games.
With unlimited time no decisive games: Chess is a draw.
Each decisive game must contain an odd number of errors.

Converting 60 h / move to 10^9 nodes / s: 17 s / move.

Thus 0.067% games with an odd number of errors.
Thus 1 error in 1503 games.
Assuming 100 positions / game: 1 error in 150,300 positions.
Thus 1 error in 10^5 positions.

Thus 1 case in 10^20 positions that the table base exact move is not among the top 4 engine moves at 10^9 nodes/s during 17 s.

If you're solving chess by 'brute force' you need to consider all the possible moves by at least one of the players.Random moves are a statistical sample of all possible moves and are thus well suited to making an estimate of average game length.

The majority of possible moves are in fact of low quality.

Things you read after doing google searches are not always right.

Even if you get to zero, all you will have proved is that AlphaZero plays itself to a draw, not that chess is a draw.  You still try to pretend...but engine play is not perfect.  It is entirely possible for engines to plateau at an imperfect level of play until some major breakthrough, just as humans do.  The number of games played by engines might seem like a lot, and the history of human chess play might seem like a lot, but we're talking only trillions of games.  That is next to nothing at the scale required to solve chess.

Your "each decisive game must contain an odd number of errors" (by which *you* mean moves that provably cause the game state to change to a non-draw) is also incorrect, because your definition of "error" is still circular.  You cannot currently quantify the errors accurately in any game of chess.  That determination will only be available *after* chess is solved, the same way that you cannot determine relative piece values accurately until chess is solved.  You can approximate with the current best engine play, but never prove.

@8651

"you need to consider all the possible moves by at least one of the players"
++ 'Next to brute-force methods it is often beneficial to incorporate knowledge-based methods in game-solving programs.'
To weakly solve Chess it is only necessary to look at the reasonable white moves.
It is not necessary to look at 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? which does not oppose to the draw.
The question is: 'How to draw as black?' and not 'How to win if white makes an error?'

"Random moves are a statistical sample of all possible moves and are thus well suited"
++ Random moves are not suited as well as good moves.

"making an estimate of average game length"
++ From ICCF WC Finals: average 42, shortest 13, longest 119

You clearly cannot recognize incompetence, or you would recuse yourself from this thread and every scientific thread you currently infest.  If there is an elementary mistake of understanding, produce it and show your work in terms of proving it.  Any one will do.

As always, you will not be able to back up a word of your meandering thought process.  In a decade, you never have done so (successfully).  You can't even find a post from the day before when called upon to do so.  It's about time you recognized whose aging is getting the better of them at 70+.  Not that you were stellar prior...  

@8652

"Even if you get to zero, all you will have proved is that AlphaZero plays itself to a draw, not that chess is a draw." ++ If an engine plays at unlimited time to the 7-men endgame table base draw, then Chess is weakly solved and it is formally proven that Chess is a draw, as we already know.

"engine play is not perfect" ++ No, engine play is not perfect: at 17 s/move on a 10^9 nodes/s cloud engine it makes 1 error in 100,000 positions. That is not perfect, but close to it.

"trillions of games.  That is next to nothing at the scale required to solve chess."
++ Weakly solving Chess takes 5 years on 3 powerful engines piloted by grandmasters.
We know Chess is a draw, but we do not yet know exactly how.
We have > 1,000 perfect games with optimal play from both sides,
but that is only a tiny fraction of the 10^17 positions relevant to weakly solving Chess.

"your definition of error is still circular"
++ No, it is not circular. An error (?) changes the game state from draw to loss, or from won back to draw. A blunder or double error (??) changes the game state from won to lost.

"You cannot currently quantify the errors accurately in any game of chess."
++ I can quantify the errors approximately with a good engine.
Statistics on a sufficiently large tournament of sufficient level can also quantify the errors.

"That determination will only be available *after* chess is solved"
++ It is irrelevant if of 120 ICCF WC Finals draws there are 116 perfect games with 0 errors + 4 flawed games with 2 errors that undo each other, or if it is 115 + 5 or 117 + 3.

"relative piece values" ++ Piece values are only a heuristic.

     Despite clearly stating that you wish to start with the assumption that black cannot win by force, you go on to claim that your proposed method does not rely on any assumption. Perhaps you are using two different definitions of "assumption". The definition (OED) "taking too much upon oneself, laying claim to undue importance, arrogance" may come into play here.

     Also, you admit that your proposed solution is merely "a first step" and not a conclusive result. Denying the possibility of your assumptions being unsound can only lead to an unconvincing conclusion. 

     Are you proposing analysis that will look at all black responses, no matter how unpromising they might appear at first glance (which does nothing to cut down the extent of the task) or will you first try to find a drawing continuation and then declare that line "solved" because you assume the impossibility of finding any winning line for black? I would see such a "proof" as unsubstantiated and would prefer an investigation into all possibilities.

Let's not pretend we don't know who is willfully trolling here.  The only reason you are pivoting to "incompetents" now is because you were recently called out about your other "I" words, also historically used for trolling.  You talk a lot, but you don't have much to say.  Just another day of fuzzy logic and bitterness, 'til your wife comes to make you go to bed.

Calls to a non-existent algorithm are just like believing in the paranormal.  There's no basis for it.  There's only one method currently underway to solve chess, and that is building tablebases backwards from all possible mates.  Significant enough progress on that will not happen in our lifetimes, or even within any possible technological future that we can make concrete plans toward.  This thread, like all the other threads on this topic, was over before it began.

As I have pointed out in the past, trying to build a bridge to the steel structure that tablebases represent using the mud and reeds and Tygxc proposes is not a worthwhile effort.  But at least it's an attempt of some sort, deluded as it may be, which is more than can be said for Optimissed's talking in circles, which is pure trolling and pseudo-intellectual twaddle.  

"there's chess positions with exact solutions. Either e4, or d4, or c4, etc. "

This sentence perfectly shows the Descartian small-mindedness of the OP.

I only  have this message for you:

To understand chess and why it can be solved, you have to completely let go of all you have learned in your current education system, i.e. Descartian logic, and step to chaos theory i.e. probabilistic logic as the fundament of your thinking. The brain and everything in the universe is probabilistic, even a computer chip - it's only an illusion that it's deterministic because technocrats like to think away organic substrate.

Chess cannot and will never be 'solved' because engines keep getting stronger. Meaning concretely, if you think there is a fixed set of best moves this isn't true because a stronger engine might find a long line based on a different prior move that turns out stronger, hence changing 'theory'.

This search for ultimate knowledge is a mental remnant of a Babylonic attempt to control the world, now simulated on the microworld of the chess board. Even if we think Western civilization is modern, this mindset is actually centuries old and seen through.

It renders this topic obsolete. Chess is a wicked problem, it cannot be solved. As in here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem

We have to understand this.
The Descartian age is long gone, guys and gals. Forget about traditional beta subjects. Logic, and in the end, AI, is something alive just like all people and other creatures.

It is the size of the game that puts it beyond reach. Other than that chess is similar to checkers which has been solved (in the sense of the peer-reviewed literature - exhibiting complete, game theoretic optimal strategies for both sides).

See, these are the kinds of posts that make you seem redeemable...hard to reconcile with the imbe-/idio-/incomp- words, though.  

and...

Optimissed wrote: 
I can remember Edmund counting the stars when he was about two. His method was this: "one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one ....

...a valid counting method, given that each star is unique at a certain level of detail. 

Apparently there are several theorems in number theory where it is convenient to prove them in two halves as I mentioned (and perhaps loosely analogous to your suggestion). It is rather fascinating, as you wouldn't instinctively expect it to be possible for both a proposition and its negation to be useful in proving a different result.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_hypothesis#Excluded_middle

Tablebase is 140 terabytes. We need Chess 2.0 to come out soon.

(Chess is solved with 7 or less pieces on the board)

But that is actually used routinely, you don't need any esoteric examples to demonstrate it.