Chess will never be solved, here's why

It's not  a better estimate, because it is blatantly an underestimate. Promotions are ubiquitous in chess, multiple promotions are common (even in a tiny sample of a few million games). To suggest you can eliminate multiple promotions in a strategy that deals with way over 10^30 times more positions than the tiny sample of chess that has been seen is not only not proven but also highly unlikely to  be true.

Imagine something that is extremely rare in chess, say so rare that there has only ever been one example in the history of chess. Now try to imagine what would be 10 times less likely, Then 10 times less likely than that. Repeat this more than 30 times. That is what you are claiming you know.

You don't.

But regardless of just how well you can avoid multiple underpromotions in an optimal strategy (with careful definitions, there is some minimal degree of underpromotion that you cannot remove while remaining an optimal strategy), the point is that you don't prove anything by waving your hands wildly, which is what you are doing. Proofs need to be thorough.

For example, if you were trying to prove the 4 colour theorem, looked at a million graphs and then used inductive reasoning from those graphs to make a claim about all graphs, how good a proof do you think you would have?

(Hint: not at all).

#811
I dismiss the  multiple  excess  underpromotions.
Multiple = more than 1
Excess = promotion to a piece not already captured,
i.e. you need to borrow the piece from another box of chess pieces
Underpromotion = promotion to R, B, or N
Multiple promotions are rare, excess promotions are rare, underpromotions are rare.
The combination of 3 rare occurences is even more rare.
In the Tromp count multiple excess underpromotions are not rare, they make up the vast majority of his counted positions:
excess promotions:  0 positions: 19201527561695835455154058755564594798074
excess promotions:  1 positions: 382355871178268365234183218244670372695068
excess promotions:  2 positions: 3666683498600457464891752992187014354136188
excess promotions:  3 positions: 22267499667290257736558400874926183060238400
excess promotions:  4 positions: 95095065373967146179514528215894174339720228
excess promotions:  5 positions: 300571414300527313744528888013946849776424304
excess promotions:  6 positions: 721668497316402902485416452421325823057710432
excess promotions:  7 positions: 1329934072135692805837128923570048899100334756
excess promotions:  8 positions: 1874962044164806332602085236357597905810647344
excess promotions:  9 positions: 1980800128935921108339671872170042183548439128
excess promotions: 10 positions: 1492529839915108301878747832838229979840571492
excess promotions: 11 positions: 722080907452760073481816196266539169729817880
excess promotions: 12 positions: 175351843526979273665005184194531833618491680
excess promotions: 13 positions: 7338473695924787177946719990630518998574920
excess promotions: 14 positions: 45087168602668580254351850721788483191140
excess promotions: 15 positions: 55323182237139471340692375109727946960
excess promotions: 16 positions: 11716401834002951530424702440978260
Total:                                             8726713169886222032347729969256422370854716254
These are Tromp's counted positions, including 95% illegal positions like with adjacent kings.
Most of his positions have 10 excess promotions. That means 16 pawns found some way to let 10 of them promote.
75% of his promotions are underpromotions.
The vast majority of the positions Tromp counted contain multiple excess underpromotions.
That is why his count is 7 magnitudes too high for the purpose of assessing the feasibility of solving chess.

If your intuitive abilities are lousy, you probably won't be a good player. Since chess may never be solved, induction from a few million games is all we have. Until it's solved, we can't pretend otherwise. Therefore, your argument has about 100% chance of inapplicability.

Computers have certainly helped with the game.
And in so many ways.
But the whole idea of a 'gambit' of 'weakly solved' where that isn't even the main issue - is itself a kind of chess game.  Verbal style.  It then gets kicked around.
But so far - nobody who's read the article seems to want to talk about the progression of time needed to advance from two pieces to seven pieces on board 'tablebased solved' ...
Its in that direction that the answers might lie of 'how long' ?
There was some utterances of ten to the 38th power positions as upper bound - and an acknowledgement of 7 pieces solved.

Elroch wrote:
"Intuition is worthless for solving chess except where it points the way to an efficiency gain for the proof.

I would also suggest pondering on the fact that induction from a few million master/computer games is unreliable for the 10^43 branches of a possible game tree. Odd things happen rarely, so you don't see them in a tiny sample."

I agree - and trying to extrapolate '5 years' from things like dismissing excess promotions - doesn't look good either.
Better would be:  the computers calculating upper bounds for 'excess promotions' after some kind of effort is made to define that.
And also calculations of the remainders.

But that's part of the daunting nature of the task -
its so huge - that even getting numbers on the numbers of positions from various branches - is difficult.  Let alone 'solving'.

You can't extrapolate, BECAUSE the present situation is within our capabilities and roughly in line with present-day achievement. We don't know how things will advance .... whether it will be fast, slow or bumpy. Therefore it isn't a productive conversation. That's already been strongly implied in the posts of various people, perhaps without being clearly stated. However, it is true and correct.

I chose to read that this time.
In spite of the provocation 'you can't'.

Sure some mathematical extrapolation could be done ...
although those who refuse to consider the math might be inclined to 
assert 'you can't'.
Perhaps there will now be a lot of attention to semantics of 'extrapolate'.
And assertions about same.

But extrapolation is in fact why so many think its unsolvable - or would take many lifetimes ...
One would consider the buildup of numbers.
The semantics of 'intuition' could also be used as a verbal football too.  
But 'extrapolation' isn't a bad word to refer to the difficulties of the task.
Insurmountable difficulties at present.  Been that way for a while.  
Its a bit like an adventure story or drama.
The argument aspect is a key player.
If the argument aspect gets killed off through progress - then the tension and drama get killed and the story ends.

Are you manic-depressive?

Not in the slightest. Try not to  be perturbed by rational input.

I was perturbed by what seems to be a very aggressive tone for no good reason. I had commented that "intuition is worthless for solving chess except where it points the way to an efficiency gain for the proof" is inapplicable. We don't have a proof and chess isn't solved. Of course it isn't worthless, whether or not we have a proof. Or .... it depends whose.

Let me explain extrapolation. Roughly it means to estimate the value of a variable, outside a known range from values within a known range, by assuming that the estimated value follows logically from the known values. However, it's clear that there isn't a linear extrapolation and to predict it accurately would be impossible.

There's actually not even a hint of aggression.  Read them again, but stop imagining some strident tone.  That's all coming from your assumptive perceptions.

Ask your wife to read Elroch's last 2-3 posts (only Elroch's, not the thread, and don't "prep" her with a description of Elroch from your PoV) and tell you what she thinks.  Do not ask her if the posts are aggressive, until *after* she has given you her first round of honest feedback.  Only then ask her if she can assume aggression purely from the content and context. 

Better yet...ask her to read the posts herself, then, before she says anything else, you read Elroch's posts aloud *to* her in the exact tone you originally imagined them to be.  Then see what she says.

Well, there wouldn't be a hint of aggression to someone who hardly knows the difference between wishing somone a good evening and killing them, now would there. Mind your own business.

Lol.  And how would you make such a damning judgment about anyone...over the internet no less?  No assumptions going on there at all...

You and I are fine so long as you don't interfere in discussions which don't concern you. You yourself just made a judgement so try not to be a hypocrite. Moreover, you still have me and many others blocked; most usually because of differences of opinion and then you troll people to manufacture an excuse to block them. Please do not concern yourself in other people's discussions and you'll get on fine with others, because technically, you can block whom you want. I would like to get on well with you, as with anyone.

Yeah, I guess it *would* be easier to get along with other posters that disagree with you if they just stopped posting?

Making judgments is not in question.  It's making judgments based on nothing concrete (assumptions) that I was discussing.  No equivalency = no hypocrisy.

As has been gone over many times, the people on my block list are almost universally there for Covid-19 discussion issues.  Before that thread existed, I had maybe 0-2 people on my block list at any given time, and I cleared it periodically.  

As for "please do not concern yourself in other people's discussions and you'll get on fine with others"...this is your first post in the thread.  Note how your own advice applies.  You strolled in looking for a fight (one *might* even say that your post was aggressive ...), as per usual, and once you've stirred up the pot a bit (with the OP, Martiggan, Mpaetz, Playerafar, Elroch, and now myself), you now want to extricate yourself and be left alone.  Conveniently, this wish for getting along always follows only after you have already dropped your payload and have run out of bombs yourself.  There's an adjective for describing those who sue for peace in this manner having already unloaded their salvos...

Elroch made a very systematic dissection and refutation of 'the other guy's posts' - upon which that same 'other' got very personal as usual.
When he's refuted (happens often) or somebody makes good points - he will often choose to then try to insist and impose instructions as to semantics. Words are to have only the constricted meanings that he wishes to ordain at the time by whim.
I skip such 'instructions'.  
I guess it has some 'interest'.  The psychology of the behaviour of one individual.  How much can he get away with?
He will keep trying to find out.
But while that is going on - the actual discussion takes place 'around' him.

I showed very briefly that I considered Elroch's assertion to be merely authoritarian and based on his own conjecture. It was also incorrect. I found his aggressive rejoinder personally offensive. There's no need for that kind of behaviour and he's old enough to understand that he shouldn't express himself so abruptly and aggressively. If people find it offensive, then quite possibly it IS offensive. You wouldn't be able to judge because you're far too concerned with trying to elevate yourself, at the expense of others, to have an unbiassed opinion, which will be taken seriously. You may also look up to Elroch and consider him to be of a superior intellect to yourself. He is.

(I'll skip #829 (probably more pingpong)  - maybe forget to glance at it later - and get on with some of the points discussed by Elroch.)
From @Elroch earlier:
"Actually we have the theory of finite games, an 8 piece tablebase, and limited other deductive knowledge (for example:

left-right symmetry
black-white symmetry (same position, colours swapped)
8-way symmetry for all pawnless positions
The first two reduce the number of positions by 4, the latter increases this to 16 in a large class of positions (a more minor saving)."

First a minor point - I believe its 7 piece tablebase - not 8.  That would be the first mention of 8 ?
Left-right symmetry doesn't offer much hope at all - a very slim cutdown of a factor of 2.  (and castling factors would just complicate it worse than if it had been skipped)  
One might be tempted to think these multiplicative cutdowns are substantial.  Like a division by ten would be a '90% reduction'.
It would be - but when dealing with these gigantic numbers with powers of ten in the forties and thirties or even upper twenties - its like still having a journey to the next arm of the galaxy to do instead of to the next galaxy  
Neither will happen in our lifetimes.

Regarding flipping the position from front to back - can this be construed as a reversal of colors of the pieces?  And only that?
Is that certain?  Castling would be affected.  And so would be pawn direction.   Would whose move it is be relevant?
Is it that neat and tidy?  A simple factor of 2?
Flipping the board that way simply multiplies positions by 2 ?
Perhaps that could be 'made sure of'. 

Note that flipping the board front to back - produces a different result from rotating it through 180 degrees !   
Right?
Including in 'pawnless'.  
And should we regard the board as always with white at the bottom of the board?  That would seem to be simplest.  But could that cause an 'issue' ?
For those who want it to be about semantics - maybe.  A nice 'verbal football'.
But math is more objective than that.  Or can be.