Chess will never be solved, here's why

E4 E5 cannot be strategy stolen. you will say 1.e3 E5 e4 is a strategy steal, but you ASSUME that black moves e5, which is false. black doesnt have to play that. black is just fine responding 1.e3 e6.

I talked to a 13 year old, and completely unprompted they immediately pointed out this flaw in your logic. i didnt even need to show them what was wrong, you are just so completely fallacious that even little kids can easily point out your fallacies.

you still havent given your own mathematics education.

@9694

"according to you" ++ 'bring all openings to technical endgames', that is weakly solving Chess.

"chess is a draw because these games are perfect, these games are perfect because chess is a draw" ++ No. Chess is a draw and the 105 games must be perfect, because there is no other plausible explanation for 105 draws out of 105 games at top chess level.

I say the only plausible explanation for the 105 draws is:
0 error: 105 games
1 error: 0 games
2 errors: 0 games
3 errors: 0 games
4 errors: 0 games

Try to come up with any plausible explanation:
0 error: ... games
1 error: ... games
2 errors: ... games
3 errors: ... games
4 errors: ... games

"Chess is a draw and the 105 games must be perfect, because there is no other plausible explanation for 105 draws out of 105 games at top chess level."

"plausible" doesnt equal proof. and "top chess level" is a subjective claim.

ah yes a "proof" out of "plausible" and subjective claims.

this is why my professors laughed at you

@9704

"plausible doesnt equal proof"
++ Try to come up with a plausible error distribution that explains 105 draws in 105 games.

0 error: ... games
1 error: ... games
2 errors: ... games
3 errors: ... games
4 errors: ... games

You cannot and nobody can, and that is proof.

"top chess level is a subjective claim." ++ It is not subjective, it is objective.
The World Championship Finals of the International Correspondence Chess Federation is the strongest chess on our planet. There are 17 ICCF (grand)masters who qualified,
they use engines and play at 50 days per 10 moves.

'Weakly solved' is kind of an oxymoron.
There's an aspect of the computer project not discussed much yet.
The time taken to 'solve' all positions with 8 pieces on the board.
That's a key quantity.
Whatever time it took for the computers to evaluate all the positions including some of them as illegal or impossible ...
Adding even one piece - to solve for 9 pieces - looks kind of 'prohibitive'.

After that another and so on.
Here's why:
If there's 8 pieces on the board - then there's up to 56 squares for a ninth piece to be added to.
But eight kinds of pieces Q,R,B,N. White or black.
And two kinds of pawns black or white - on up to 48 squares.
That means the new upper bound of positions to be processed is a product of the old count of such and ((56x8) + (48x2)) In other words C x 544.
Say it took a year for 8 pieces.
That's 544 years for 9 pieces.
And over 25,000 years for ten pieces.

Extrapolating for 32 pieces and even after allowing for less squares for pieces to be added to - how about at least 30 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years to do the whole job? And that's just at the final stage ...
Estimated time of the Big Bang ... 'only' 13 billion years ago.
Estimated time the sun will engulf the earth ...
a 'measly' 7 billion years and change from now. Mars after that.
So if humanity wants to continue the tomfoolery of that project with a room full of supercomputers on interstellar spaceships ... with a whole lot of better things to do ... there's going to have to be some star-hopping.

@9707

"Weakly solved is kind of an oxymoron."
++ That is how it is called. That is what Schaeffer did for Checkers.

"The time taken to 'solve' all positions with 8 pieces on the board." ++ That is different. The 8-men endgame table base is being generated backwards from the 7-men endgame table base.

"Whatever time it took for the computers to evaluate all the positions including some of them as illegal or impossible" ++ The 7-men endgame table base contains illegal positions.
The computers did not evaluate, they traced from 6-men, traced from 5-men, traced from 4 men, traced from 3 men.

"Adding even one piece - to solve for 9 pieces - looks kind of 'prohibitive'." ++ For now yes.
But the point of weakly solving a game is to avoid having to deal with all legal positions.

"Extrapolating for 32 pieces"
++ That would be strongly solving chess and is beyond present technology.

Maybe someone could start a forum listing who are the most brilliant and who are the least intelligent posters on chess.com. Then this forum might return to a discussion of the actual question.

You missed my points tygxc.
'tracing' is still 'processing'.
If it takes a year to 'trace' from 7 pieces to 8 pieces - that's till a year.
And its going to take 544 times as long to get to 9 pieces.
You don't get out of this with the word 'trace'.
I already predicted that you'd want to reject the logic.
That's fine. You can.
But the numbers don't lie. They multiply.
Cruelly.
You want to solve this - you better have a pretty comfortable spaceship.
Will you have a swimming pool on board?
And machines to maintain 'life-stasis' for 3 x 10 to the 61st power years?

And it wouldn't be 'strongly solving' because you already excluded castling - so its not 'chess' - its 'wish-simple'.
But I admire your courage guy.
You're doing a good job - however much some of the others don't like it.
Or like to not like it.

You're one of the better posters mpaetz.
Very few people obsess over things like IQ tests.
and abilities to associate 3d shapes presented on a 2d piece of paper or screen.
Its an inane ability of little use ...

@9710

"If it takes a year to 'trace' from 7 pieces to 8 pieces"
++ All 423,836,835,667,331 7-men positions to all 38,176,306,877,748,245 8-men positions.

"And it wouldn't be strongly solving" ++ It would be, it would lead to a 32-men table base. You could enter any ridiculous position and get if it is won/drawn/lost and how. That however is beyond present technology. That is why weakly solving is the only feasible option.

"you already excluded castling" ++ That is besides the point. 7-men endgame table bases do not include castling rights, because once 7 men are reached kings have moved.
You cannot have a reasonable game that reaches 7 men and one king can still castle.
It would be a minor complication: a factor 16: 2 white and 2 black castling flags.
Likewise you could add an en passant flag, but that does not matter either.

No tygxc - it wouldn't be strongly solving because you excluded castling.
I'm not going to 'argue' with you though.
And 'weakly solving' isn't valid either.
But you will keep your 'stance' though.
And that's Good for You! Right on!

And castling does come up in some endgame positions.
Including in games.
Again - I won't 'argue' though.
You say what you say. I say what I say. And others say what they say.
I say - 3 x 10 to the 61st years at least - even for 'wish simple' processing.
And I almost forgot - U Gotz to double that because of according to whose move it is.
And U ain't gonna havv thet kinda Tahhhhmmmm Guy.
Nobodee gonna.
See ya next time.

@9713

"it wouldn't be strongly solving because you excluded castling" ++ I did not exclude anything, the people who compiled the 7-men endgame table base excluded it as it adds nothing useful.

"weakly solving isn't valid" ++ It is valid. That is what Schaeffer did for Checkers.
Checkers is Solved

"And castling does come up in some endgame positions."
++ No. Show one (1) game where castling happened in a 7-men position.

There's a variation on what Elroch just said.
Anytime the computer finds a forced checkmate - it doesn't have to find a faster or slower one. That's that. It 'gets a break' on the faster one.

If it finds a forced draw or forced perpetual check or forced stalemate though - it can't stop there. Its not finished that yet.
Because what if there's a forced win for the player supposedly trying to draw?
It has to check thoroughly for that too - even if it doesn't look likely.

Or what about just 'winning chances'? What if the player doesn't want a draw?
That's making it tougher yet again.
I guess we have to give the computer a break and it doesn't have to look for helpmates and helpdraws and helpwins? That's not 'open and shut' either.
In fact - mistakes (help) is what the real game of chess is all about.
Elroch already indirectly suggesting that too in his posts just now.

Its really getting from 7 to 8 pieces that's key - and 8 to 9 and so on up to and including 32.
But the sun's going to engulf the earth long before that job gets done!

@9714

"a weak solution consists of a strategy"
++ Knowledge-based methods are just as acceptable as brute-force methods.
'It is often beneficial to incorporate knowledge-based methods in game-solving programs'
Games solved: Now and in the future

"against ANY opponent moves" ++ Correction: against any opposition.

"it needs to deal with all dumb sequences of opponent moves"
++ No. You can prune. 1 e4 Nf6 2 Qh5? is a loss for white without needing any game tree.

"heuristic analysis like conventional chess engines with their evalutions was used heavily to guide the choice of likely moves to include in the strategies, but played no role in the final proof"
++ I understand this completely: the final proof is reaching the 7-men endgame table base or a prior 3-fold repetition. Engine evaluations play no role.

"The rest can be proven to be irrelevant by an Alpha-Beta search" ++ Same for Chess.

@9716

"0 error: 104 games
1 error: 0 games
2 errors: 1 game"
++ It is conceivable. It is still consistent with Chess is a draw.
So 1 in 105 games could be non-perfect.

"Note that such double errors may be quite common when the players are quite similar,
because they can involve both players missing a very difficult line."
++ Yes, it is a problem for engine autoplay by 1 entity.
However different ICCF grandmasters with different engines and tunings make it unlikely.

"Likely examples are often spotted in world class GM games analysed by top engines."
++ Humans are much weaker. There is also psychology. I make an incorrect sacrifice.
My opponent looks at it, and his clock is ticking, and he wrongfully declines.

@9717

"and so on up to and including 32"
++ That would be strongly solving chess and it is beyond present technology.
Move on to weakly solving, as Schaeffer did for Checkers.

@9721

"even if chess is a draw we don't know that" ++ Yes, we know.

"we don't have proof" ++ We have.

"until engines have solved all 32 positions we don't have proof"
++ This thinking error keeps coming up. It is not necessary to strongly solve Chess to weakly solve it. It is not necessary to weakly solve Chess to ultra-weakly solve it.
We can know Chess is a draw without knowing how.
We can know Chess is a draw and know how to draw Chess without a 32-men table base.

Schaeffer weakly solved Checkers, not strongly. We know Checkers is a draw and know how.
We do not have a full table base for Checkers.

"it's known that chess is a draw" ++ Yes

"just no proof" ++ The 105 ICCF WC Finals draws are the proof.

"how that works" ++ Proof is proof, by whatever means.

"what your trying to do is assume something" ++ No I look at an observed fact: 105 out of 105 ICCF WC Finals games are draws. This is not consistent with Chess not being a draw. It is also not consistent with the 105 games not being perfect games (except maybe one or even two).

@9722

"weak solution is just that" ++ Please do read Games solved: Now and in the future as you promised to do instead of talking nonsense.

"there's no foolproof way to seperate good lines in chess from bad"
++ There is: any line that ends in either a 7-men endgame table base draw,
or a prior 3-fold repetition is a good line for black.

"three GMs" ++ 17 ICCF (grand)masters with engines 5 days/move average now achieved 105 draws out of 105 games.