Chess will never be solved, here's why

@6981

"the claim that a full bishop up, no compensation of any kind is a win is incorrect."
++ So you know it better than Capablanca who said so?

"a bishop advantage can often be a significant advantage in chess, it is not a guarantee"
++ It is.

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If you say so Ty.

@6983

"is everything else the same?, how much the same must they be"
++ The same is the same, like 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6?

++++ This is not exactly the same. Without a definition, in fact, even with a definition, even only one assistant will give different answers at different times. Humans just aren't as consistent as you believe.

"what to do when the good assistants disagree" ++ They should never disagree.
They should only cut short on what they are absoltely sure about, like 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6?

++++ How "absolutely" sure? Given that the same person will give different answers to the same such issue, given different moods, different times of day and so on, the word "absolutely" is not as clear as you believe. Absolutely sure as in "9 out of ten times I will be right"? As in 99999 out of 100000?

"or agree but are wrong?" ++ That should never happen.
That is why good assistants are needed, e.g. (ICCF) grand(master)s.

++++ It most definitely will happen. Even the same GM will change opinion on such matters over time.

"There are certainly positions where the absolute world elite players disagree on this issue"
++ Most positions, in that case: calculate.
The shortcut is only to avoid useless calculation like 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6?

++++ It is absolutely not clear to me that given perfect play by both players after these moves changes status of the position. It could very well be that starting pos is a draw, and after Ba6 it is still draw.

"find positions with stuff that probably no human will judge correctly in a consistent manner"
++ Most positions are such that neither human, nor engine can evaluate. That is why in most positions just calculation is in order until the 7-men table base is hit.

++++ So most of the time the assessment of the assistant is unnecessary (he dares not say he is sure), some of the time it is wrong (humans make mistakes), and all of the time it is an incredible slowdown. I don't think you understand how much of a slowdown it gives. Deep Blue was capable of evaluating 200 million positions per second (you can use a different number if you want, this was just the number I found that was easiest to find). You want to put a human in there to evaluate every position where there is a clear material difference. Now suppose the position is such that one player is down a piece but may or may not have sufficient compensation. Lets say something like e4 a6 Bxa6 Nxa6. Pretty much any move done by either side from that position will lead to another position where white is down a bishop ish, and question is whether there is compensation or "everything is equal". Let's say half the positions are like that. Give him one second per position, and he will still spend 100 million seconds to check each one of them.  You really think this is a good idea? I hope you are aware that computers typically do selective search already, so they do spend less time on weak moves? And that analysis of a bad move typically can be performed much faster than OK moves using alpha beta cutoff or similar methods since you get faster to positions that are shown to be suboptimal? Or the Alpha Zero algorithm, which will use neural nets to do super fast and often superior guesses of the value of a position without the need for a human?

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Otherwise it is a known 4-men KBP vs. K draw.

@6986

Near the initial position.
This is another weird artificial construct.
Even 5 underpromotions to bishops.
Otherwise it is a known 4-men KBP vs. K draw.

@6960

There are several logical and mathematical errors in the provided statement. Firstly, the claim that "a full bishop up, no compensation of any kind is a win" is incorrect. While having a bishop advantage can often be a significant advantage in chess, it is not a guarantee of victory. It is possible for a player with a bishop advantage to lose the game, especially if their opponent has other compensating factors such as a material advantage or a superior position.

Of course, it isn't a guarantee of victory if the player with the Bishop doesn't know what they're doing. But in this kind of position, Bishop up on move 2, where if Black takes with 2. ....ba instead of Nxa6 then black also has a significant positional advantage, as well as the extra Bishop, it should be a certainty. In general, Bishop up so early in the game is an absolute guarantee of a win, provided the player with the Bishop knows how to play. It can always be swapped for one or more pawns. Of course, if someone can't play so well, they're just as likely to lose against a strong opponent as if they started a bishop down. 

Additionally, the claim that "a tempo up is enough to win" is also incorrect. A tempo is simply the time it takes a player to make a move, and while having an extra tempo can be advantageous, it is not a guarantee of victory.

Obviously. Why even reply to such an idea?

The statement that "1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? is a forced checkmate for black" is also incorrect. While the move 2...Ba6 may be a strong move for black, it is not a forced checkmate. It is possible for white to defend against this attack and potentially even gain an advantage.

"Forced checkmate" means forced against best play but it also implies that the player with the Bishop can actually play a decent game and understands how to force the win which exists. Weak players, who have no real idea how to play and to whom all chess results are a matter of luck, possibly have not much room to comment here.

Furthermore, the calculation of the Shannon number as 10^120 is incorrect. The Shannon number represents the total number of possible chess games, not the number of possible positions. The correct calculation of the Shannon number is significantly larger than 10^120.

I'm not interested in that, personally, since it's clear that all the ideas on show need to be rethought and quoting things like "Shannon Numbers" is just or can be just a means to try to indicate expertise where it doesn't exist. In any case, it can have been no more than an approximation or even a guess, whatever it is.

The assertion that weakly solving chess without any game knowledge would take 100,000 years is also flawed. This calculation is based on incorrect assumptions about the number of legal positions and the number of possible moves per ply, and does not take into account the fact that many positions can be evaluated much more quickly using chess engines and databases.

Obviously, tygxc asserts 5 years. Which is likely to be closer? tygxc has no understanding of the complexity, even assuming that white cannot lose from the initial position and therefore only finding drawing moves for black is necessary. When you get a number of people who don't really know how to think about problems like this and whose minds aren't clear anyhow, it just leads to a perpetual show of incompetence, which is only to be expected.

It's pretty clear that no-one has a really clear idea of procedures that are necessary. I asked "what is the first thing that must be done?" for a reason. If everyone has ignored it, that isn't because I can't think clearly. It's because others can't and the result here is like a bunch of five year olds trying to solve general relativity.

No offence intended of course. I'm just trying to be objective.

It is important to carefully consider the evidence and reasoning behind any claims, particularly when it comes to complex topics such as chess.

I wish influential people had tried to think well about the Ukraine conflict, at its outset.

Here is this clowns plan for solving the game of chess. 

By making a tablebase of positions that can not beat anyone at chess. Your insane and poorly designed and thought out plan. Could beat no human player at chess, or my dog at chess. By calculating out 10^17 positions. As it could not even play a game of chess once a sub optimal move is played.  What value is this to anyone. Even if you could do this as you claimed and it worked.

Why would you make such a tablebase of positions that you claimed is solving chess. But that is totally worthless to anyone.

You would have a tablebase of positions that you calculated out to be optimal, but with no value to any chess player. And your insane tablebase could not even play chess with a child and win. Or help with any kind of practical chess analysis. No sane person would call this having a weak solution to the game of chess.   

Chess is not checkers! Chess is not a game were you can force the others player down the game path of your choosing. 

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Chess is not checkers!

It seems we need to develop an algorithm which works well and which is 100% reliable. So what must be done first, in order that such an algorithm may be developed?

So again, all the Rattigans and Elrochs really ought to be answering the question "what is the first thing to do before chess can be solved?

I already answered that one - understand what is meant by "solved". Deciding what you mean by "chess" is also a good idea, because the solutions will depend on the rules and there are different sets of rules.

I made some comments  on such an algorithm above, starting with "Strange thread indeed". In short, I believe that without a revolution (as in making the existing stuff seem like children's toys) in either computer hardware or chess theory, what you are asking for is impossible in the foreseeable future.

Not if it's done by the naturally correct method, ...

SF15 prefers Nxa6 all the way to depth 37, so if you know what you're doing as the player with the bishop and you know the win is certain we'd all like to see your 10/10 straight wins against SF15 from that position using 2...ba. Feel free to post them.