Chess will never be solved, here's why

@10343

"they couldn't include castling?" ++ They could, but that is of no use.

"they've been hung up between 7 and 8 for quite a while." ++ Yes

"they might never reach even 11 men" ++ Maybe.

"I doubt they've genuinely solved even for six men" ++ No doubt at all.

"read Martin's recent posts" ++ All besides the question.

not if you haven't read his posts.
They've got to include castling for proper solving.
Especially since the more men you add the more relevant castling will be.
We agree on two points tygxc - 
two points that are related.
How long did it take for them to proceed through each stage?
What about the 50 move rule?
How long have they been hung up on 8 men?
Its got to be far over a year.
Even with cheating by skipping castling possibilities.
Have they skipped en passant too?
You've got to include all these things tygxc - otherwise its not really solving.
Its 'pseudo'.
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I say again - its solved for three pieces - because however many such positions the computers can probably solve each one so quickly that the whole job is done in under an hour.
And the computer would know the exact number of positions too.
But with four - its beginning to get dubious the computer could do it quickly because there's over 500 times as many positions as with three.
But it seems plausible that if the computers could thoroughly solve all positions with three pieces on board in under one hour - then they could do four pieces in 500 hours.
But for five pieces - you're getting into a factor of 25,000.
There's over 7000 hours in a year.
You're looking at over three years there.
I'd be curious how long it took them to pseudo-solve for five pieces.

@10345

"They've got to include castling for proper solving." ++ It is no problem, but of no use.

"What about the 50 move rule?" ++ The 50-moves rule plays no role. An average ICCF WC Finals game ends in a draw in 38 moves, long before 50. ICCF allows 7-men endgame table base win claims that exceed the 50 moves, but such win claims do not happen, only draw claims.

"otherwise its not really solving" ++ Schaeffer weakly solved Checkers. It is real.

"its solved for three pieces" ++ Chess is strongly solved for 7 men.

"the exact number of positions"
5 men: 26,038,209,193
6 men: 3,787,154,440,416
7 men: 423,836,835,667,331
8 men: 38,176,306,877,748,245

"I'd be curious how long it took them"
6 men: 2005
7 men: 2012

Hello world :stockfish

Those figures don't look right tygxc.
26 billion positions for five men and then only 3.7 trillion for six men?
That's a factor of less than 160.
The true factor is over 500.
Have they used shortcuts for rotations and reflections?
If they have - its still an inaccurate figure.
The correct figure in the trillions was supposed to be well over ten trillion - if the 26 billions figure is correct.
The math isn't hard.
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It took Seven Years to get from six men to seven men even with pseudo-solving?
Seems to prove my points.
Even with the 160 factor in your numbers - 
you're looking at over 1100 years to get through 8 men.
If it becomes a lot less then they're doing a lot of more extra-cheating.
Yes I know - they're going to 'improve the algorithm and the computing power'
but Al Gore didn't have much rhythm.
your nodes per second is invalid by the way TY ... because the difficulty of positions varies.
TY TY. (pun not deep)

Yes, because every set is a subset of itself.

Legally unreachable and illegal are exactly the same with the caveat that we understand "legally reachable" as reachable by a series of (made) legal moves and "legally unreachable" as anything else. I believe that is the normal assumption.

From the FIDE laws:

3.10.3 A position is illegal when it cannot have been reached by any series of legal moves.

And that would also correspond with most people's understanding. The aforementioned caveat is generally made when considering printed positions.

To clarify, a board layout such as the following

can legitimately occur in a game, because art. 4 puts no constraint on the path a piece should take when making a move and the White king could simply be moving from e1 to e2 by the scenic route. (The king could also be straddling square boundaries.)

The position at that point is legitimately reachable, but nevertheless illegal because a position with that board layout could not have been reached by any series of (made) legal moves.

While unusual, it would be strictly correct to interpret "legally unreachable" as "not legitimately reachable", because FIDE doesn't specifically define that phrase and that would be the normal reading in English. In that case, "legally unreachable" would be a proper subset of "illegal".

In either case we can agree that legally unreachable would be a subset - is a subset - of 'illegal'.

@10348

"Those figures don't look right tygxc." ++ They are right.

"Have they cheated for rotations and reflections?" ++ Of course they have used symmetry.

"If they have - its still inaccurate." ++ It is accurate.

"It took Seven Years to get from six men to seven men"
++ Yes, and it took even more time to compress the storage so as to fit on a desktop.

"you're looking at over 1100 years to get through 8 men." ++ No, it is in progress.

Well Martin I disagree with a lot of that.
We do agree that legally unreachable is a subset of illegal though.
But not that its 'identical' with 'illegal'.
We're going to continue to disagree on that one ...
but that disagreement won't cause tectonic plate movement - nor a solar flare - nor the planets aligning.
Anyway - you might want to check out my latest post responding to tygxc's latest.
I wonder what his 'out' will be.
Maybe 'Player they weren't working on it the whole Seven Years'.

I did actually agree you can have illegal positions that are not legally unreachable with a strict (but unconventional) reading.

Is that what you had in mind? If not, perhaps you could give an example of a position that is illegal but not legally unreachable with the conventional meaning.

100 to nitpick, but it doesn't affect your argument.

Here's another thing that will never be solved by myself:

My existence in this realm knows to humans as the milky-way. It will remain unsolved for quite a while.

It's only you that gets confused, @Optimissed.

@10356

"tygxc's main fault is to engage trolls"
++ Probably. Most are either too lazy to read, or too stupid to understand
Games solved: Now and in the future

and
Checkers Is Solved

Very easily, even with the conventional understanding I mentioned in #10349.

Here are a few.

Competition rules only:

That last is only partially described, but applies to any position that fits the description.

Here is one (either game) with two men, courtesy of Andrew Buchanan.

Yup but it's more that they read then twist things to their hearts content to "win " an argument that really eeks me lol

Perfectly true, but for the last, some people don't understand that a big red telephone doesn't count. (And some people also just don't understand what the first means.)

Then, of course, there's @Optimissed, who doesn't understand what any of it means.

Let's be frank, there is one repetitive blunderer who doesn't even understand the last sentence of the abstract of the second link:

"Solving a game takes this to the next level by replacing the heuristics with perfection."

I'm aware of its Italian meaning, but to your misfortune it has nothing to do to what is to be believed. However, I will not mind you to have it your way if you feel like so.

Well, there are three kinds of mathematician; those that can count and those that can't.

(See above post.)