Chess will never be solved, here's why

<<So a common sense view would be that almost all positions near the start of the game are won under basic rules  (for one or other side) but many would appear to be drawn to beginners and grandmasters alike.>>

I don't think that follows because where there are more men, other factors come in. Also when the position is dynamically and statically balanced as in the normal starting position. At least, my "common sense" leads me to take up an opposing position or assessment to where your "common sense" leads you. Also, it would be completely impossible to prove, because there's always the chance that a mistake would be made in the calculations and if a mistake were made, it would be incapable of being discovered.

#61
There are no trillions of moves: each chess game ends in 5898.5 moves at most.
That is the theoretical maximum.
In practice the longest chess game was 269 moves Nikolic - Arsovic, Belgrade, 1989

Interesting

What I tell you three times is true?

Try reading #22 which was written specifically for you.

#65
9.2 The game is drawn upon a correct claim by the player having the move, when the same
position, for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):
a. is about to appear, if he first writes his move on his scoresheet and declares to the
arbiter his intention to make this move, or
b. has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.
Positions as in (a) and (b) are considered the same, if the same player has the move,
pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares, and the possible moves of
all the pieces of both players are the same.
Positions are not the same if a pawn that could have been captured en passant can no
longer be captured in this manner. When a king or a rook is forced to move, it will lose its
castling rights, if any, only after it is moved.
9.3 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by the player having the move, if:
a. he writes his move on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to
make this move, which shall result in the last 50 moves having been made by each
player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture, or
b. the last 50 consecutive moves have been made by each player without the
movement of any pawn and without any capture.
https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf

Those are the Laws of Chess and they guarantee a finite game. Only finite games can be solved. It is essential for the game, not like the rule with which hand to push the clock.

I've made it clear I'm talking about basic rules.

There is no section 9 in the basic rules of chess.

The rules you quote (from an out of date copy of the handbook anyway) don't in any case limit the length of the game because there is no compulsion on a player to claim.

You still have obviously not read #22.

We are talking about solving chess, i.e. the game with all its Laws of Chess. If you leave out the 3/5 fold repetition rules or the 50/75 move rules then it is no finite game and it cannot be solved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zermelo%27s_theorem_(game_theory) 

Firstly Zermelo's theorem says nothing of the sort.

Neither is your assertion true. I solved deBono's L-game within a couple of days of being shown it and that's an infinite game.

In fact it's the competition rules game that presents difficulties due to clock and arbiters et al. 

Secondly you obviously didn't read your own link either. I quote

Lastly, in view of the official game laws, chess is an infinite game. Strictly speaking, the game does not have a rule or a set of rules that ends it after a finite number if moves has been made. The game does not stop when the number of moves exceeds a given limit. Instead a player may claim to end the game in a draw when he makes a move that leads to a position where the last 50 two player moves have been made without any pawn and without capturing the other player's piece. Secondly, the game may end effectively without the player making a claim where a checkmate cannot occur by any possible series of moves. Following these rules it is possible to construct an infinite path in the game. It is the possibility of infinite paths in chess that makes the game infinite.

Yes, I understood what you must have meant by "basic rules" but there's no basic rule of understanding, which states that all people must understand what is meant by "basic rules" when they remain unexplained.

magnus is close

Point taken. But I would have thought my post #26 at least made it abundantly clear.

The distinction is important, however. The question OP puts is actually two different questions depending on whether the 75 move/5-fold repetition rules are or are not to be included in the answer.

If I were to take the hypothetical bet, I would at the moment go for a draw in the former case and a White win in the latter. But that could change with more information.

There are substantial safeguards. Mistakes have indeed been made and discovered.

This is a miniscule consideration compared with my assumption that the figures from the 2-7 man tablebases could be extrapolated to 32 men.

It would actually be perfectly possible for the EGTB generation programs to simultaneously produce a formal proof in text (storage permitting). Not good for the rain forests to attempt to print it though.

Nor any point.

Just to satisfy @Optimissed.

More to satsfy yourself, since I would hardly trust a proof: suspecting human error at all points in such a pointless endeavour.

Yes, I noticed you don't take much notice of proofs, when they are provided.

They may not be real, when they're so difficult and being so dependent on an extrapolation makes them inferential.

Well I wouldn't like to implement any routine in an an EGTB generator that produces an extrapolated proof beyond the number of men it addresses. Not saying it's impossible, but it would have to be pretty ingeneous.

"Extrapolation"? Not a concept that seems to fit in here.

Do you mean in the context of an EGTB generator or in the context of #61?