Chess will never be solved, here's why

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Avatar of Intellectual_26
Intellectual_26 wrote:

"There are 9,132,484 distinct positions or 120,921,506 total positions after 6 moves (three moves for White and three moves for Black)."

Wow, Awesome! Not so, unsolvable whatsoever.

No replies?

Then I see, The King 👑 hath Spoken once More.

Avatar of perc_nowitski
Intellectual_26 wrote:
Intellectual_26 wrote:

"There are 9,132,484 distinct positions or 120,921,506 total positions after 6 moves (three moves for White and three moves for Black)."

Wow, Awesome! Not so, unsolvable whatsoever.

No replies?

Then I see, The King 👑 hath Spoken once More.

I believe you fundamentally misunderstood the quote you posted, so let me post it in its entirely along with the link.

"The number of distinct chess positions after White’s first move is 20 (16 pawn moves and 4 knight moves).  There are 400 distinct chess positions after two moves (first move for White, followed by first move for Black).  There are 5,362 distinct chess positions or 8,902 total positions after three moves (White’s second move).  There are 71,852 distinct chess positions or 197,742 total positions after four moves (two moves for White and two moves for Black).  There are 809,896 distinct positions or 4, 897,256 total positions after 5 moves.  There are 9,132,484 distinct positions or 120,921,506 total positions after 6 moves (three moves for White and three moves for Black).  The total number of chess positions after 7 moves is 3,284,294,545.  The total number of chess positions is about 2x10 to the 46 power. If you understand this and like math tell us the answer." - Reed Richards, 2010, https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/i-need-a-math-genius-to-explain-how-many-chess-positions-there-are

Whats important here is the part you selected, "There are 9,132,484 distinct positions or 120,921,506 total positions after 6 moves (three moves for White and three moves for Black)." Its not that there are 120,921,506 total positions LEFT after 6 moves, it is that there are 120,921,506 positions GIVEN after 6 moves. I just spent my entire time typing this and Chess.com flagged it for no reason but to cut a long story short: Based on the information from the guy you used there are at LEAST 10^47 games. Given this and given the current maximum capabilities of super computers (which can hold 10^17 bytes) it can be seen that the MINIMUM amount of possible games is 10^29 times greater than the amount of information we can currently store.

It is important to remember that this is a small bound, 10^47, the person that INVENTED computers the real KING 👑 worked this out long before us. His name was Claude Shannon and he proved that there were more chess positions than number of atoms in the universe. While this number is bigger than 10^47 is it probably closer to the number of actual significant games than the person who made that Chess.com post. Using this, if we were to use the number of atoms in the universe as bits to store our Chess game (literally a 1:1 correspondence which would not be possible) we would still run out of space to store all of the possible games. This problem would not exist for a quantum computer, however none of our quantum computers are that capable yet so as of RIGHT NOW, the problem of solving chess IS UNSOLVABLE.

TLDR: You literally as of today CAN NOT solve chess using a computer/supercomputer there is not enough storage in the world to hold the games. In the future, this still may be the case. A Quantum Computer with enough capability (which is feasible unlike the storage problem) could solve chess

Avatar of MF972
Elroch wrote:

Incidentally, everyone who has an understanding of how machine learning, reinforcement learning and AlphaZero work also knows that the "knowledge" acquired by AlphaZero and referred to in the paper title is inductive in origin and uncertain in character. Indeed, it is explicitly uncertain, in that AlphaZero expresses its knowledge about positions in the form of an array of probabilities.

Probabilities are not "explicitly uncertain", you can and usually do chose the move with the highest expectation value, in an absolutely deterministic manner. There isn't anything random or undeterministic here (unless it's added by hand, e.g., to randomly choose one among equivalent (?) opening moves.)

Avatar of Elroch

Probabilities explicitly express (i.e. quantify) uncertainty. That is what they are for.

AlphaZero and LeelaZero play chess in a way which is much more natural to me than conventional engines: central to their approach is trying to estimate the probability of different results if they play a particular move. Exactly what you need to make a decision but can't be certain. Of course they achieve this capability to estimate probabilities from the experience of large numbers of examples. The key step is one common to a great deal of reinforcement learning - the rules of chess provide a relationship between estimates on one move and the estimates for all the positions that can be reached from that position by a legal move. To oversimplify, this is what is used to improve the estimates as they learn.

Avatar of MagnusCarlson202020212022
Jesus, 9000 posts
Avatar of Intellectual_26
Intellectual_26 wrote:

"There are 9,132,484 distinct positions or 120,921,506 total positions after 6 moves (three moves for White and three moves for Black)."

Wow, Awesome! Not so, unsolvable whatsoever.

Once, Again.

Avatar of dillasaysgo

hello

 

Avatar of ThunderingStereo

this is insightufl

Avatar of Lincoy3304
There are only a finite amount of moves in chess, so ‘technically’ chess can be “solved” by knowing every single possible move sequence. Chess has been solved in this way for seven pieces or less. It will keep expanding exponentially as technology’s power increases exponentially, but after every piece added the move sequences also increase exponentially. The question is whether or not computers can store that much new information in a reasonable amount of time not whether it’s at least possible. I think it will happen soon after quantum computing takes a major role
Avatar of MARattigan
MF972 wrote:
Elroch wrote:

Incidentally, everyone who has an understanding of how machine learning, reinforcement learning and AlphaZero work also knows that the "knowledge" acquired by AlphaZero and referred to in the paper title is inductive in origin and uncertain in character. Indeed, it is explicitly uncertain, in that AlphaZero expresses its knowledge about positions in the form of an array of probabilities.

Probabilities are not "explicitly uncertain", you can and usually do chose the move with the highest expectation value, in an absolutely deterministic manner. There isn't anything random or undeterministic here (unless it's added by hand, e.g., to randomly choose one among equivalent (?) opening moves.)

 you can and usually do chose the move with the highest expectation value

That should read

you can and usually do chose a move with the highest expectation value

SF15 with NNUE can demonstrably have all moves with the same (sometimes incorrect) evaluation in many situations. 

Avatar of DiogenesDue
Intellectual_26 wrote:
Intellectual_26 wrote:

"There are 9,132,484 distinct positions or 120,921,506 total positions after 6 moves (three moves for White and three moves for Black)."

Wow, Awesome! Not so, unsolvable whatsoever.

Once, Again.

Just as pointless as last time.

You have to evaluate 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000+ positions to solve chess (10^44).

Avatar of MARattigan
DiogenesDue wrote:
Intellectual_26 wrote:
Intellectual_26 wrote:

"There are 9,132,484 distinct positions or 120,921,506 total positions after 6 moves (three moves for White and three moves for Black)."

Wow, Awesome! Not so, unsolvable whatsoever.

Once, Again.

Just as pointless as last time.

You have to evaluate 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000+ positions to solve chess (10^44).

Not even if you're planning to solve chess according to current FIDE basic rules (no 50/75 move or triple/quintuple repetition rules) which has generally been regarded as a version of chess only since 2017 (at any rate for many years).

Several points.

1. The best estimate (Tromp) of the number of legal positions under current FIDE basic rules is nearly five times the number you quote. I would guess the number you quote would not cover the legal positions pursuant to most KPP v KPP positions if the 50/75 move and triple/quintuple repetition rules are included in the rules (depending on what you mean by "position").

2. It's not necessary to evaluate all legal positions to weakly solve chess. How many depends on the method of finding a solution.

3. First of all you need a relevant definition of "position" and "chess" - relevant to some method of finding a solution, that is. It's easy to find situations in possible games under rules that include the 50/75 move and triple/quintuple repetition rules where the FENs at the completion of a move are identical but the correct result in terms of win, draw or loss are different.

Avatar of DannyStarfy

What do you guys mean by solving chess?

Avatar of DiogenesDue
MARattigan wrote:

Not even if you're planning to solve chess according to current FIDE basic rules (no 50 move or triple repetition rules) which has generally been regarded as chess only since 2017.

Several points.

1. The best estimate of the number of legal positions under current FIDE basic rules is nearly five times the number you quote. I would guess the number you quote would not cover the legal positions pursuant to most KPP v KPP positions if the 50 move and triple repetition rules are included in the rules (depending on what you mean by "position").

2. It's not necessary to evaluate all legal positions to weakly solve chess. How many depends on the method of finding a solution.

3. First of all you need a relevant definition of "position" - relevant to some method of finding a solution, that is. It's easy to find situations in possible games under rules that include the 50 move and triple repetition rules where the FENs at the completion of a move are identical but the correct result in terms of win, draw or loss are different.

Ok, I'll put you down on the side of the guy who thinks 6 ply is enough to do the job wink.png.

Until a viable method gets put forth for shortcutting the process, the number is over 10^40.  Whether that is 10^40, 10^42, 10^44, 10^46, etc, is immaterial...they are all impossible given current technology *and* any reasonably foreseeable technology.  "5 times the number" is relatively insignificant at those orders of magnitude.

Cue the dweebs that think that quantum computers as they sit now can solve chess...

Avatar of DiogenesDue
DannyTheClauncher wrote:

What do you guys mean by solving chess?

Look it up.  Google is your friend.

Avatar of MARattigan
DiogenesDue wrote:
MARattigan wrote:

Not even if you're planning to solve chess according to current FIDE basic rules (no 50 move or triple repetition rules) which has generally been regarded as chess only since 2017.

Several points.

1. The best estimate of the number of legal positions under current FIDE basic rules is nearly five times the number you quote. I would guess the number you quote would not cover the legal positions pursuant to most KPP v KPP positions if the 50 move and triple repetition rules are included in the rules (depending on what you mean by "position").

2. It's not necessary to evaluate all legal positions to weakly solve chess. How many depends on the method of finding a solution.

3. First of all you need a relevant definition of "position" - relevant to some method of finding a solution, that is. It's easy to find situations in possible games under rules that include the 50 move and triple repetition rules where the FENs at the completion of a move are identical but the correct result in terms of win, draw or loss are different.

Ok, I'll put you down on the side of the guy who thinks 6 ply is enough to do the job .

Until a viable method gets put forth for shortcutting the process, the number is over 10^40.  Whether that is 10^40, 10^42, 10^44, 10^46, etc, is immaterial...they are all impossible given current technology *and* any reasonably foreseeable technology.  "5 times the number" is relatively insignificant at those orders of magnitude.

Cue the dweebs that think that quantum computers as they sit now can solve chess...

We already have a viable method for shortcutting the process, it's called tablebase generation.  Unfortunately, while it's a viable method (I should say viable methods) for shortcutting the process, it still doesn't result in a viable process.

For example a KNN v K tablebase contains around 12.5 million positions under FIDE basic rules (in most people's parlance), but less than a hundred will be included in a Nalimov tablebase (possibly a few thousand considered in total). By far the biggest reductions arise when the 50/75 move and triple/quintuple repetition rules are included.   

Granted a factor of 4.82 is not particularly significant in terms of 10^44, but it should at least mean @tygxc starts talking about 11 years using 3 cloud computers + 7 maids with 7 mops instead of 5 years, if he's going to be consistent in his own terms. It would, of course, be an insignificant step in the right direction in real terms.

Avatar of Kyobir

Chess has been solved (by that I mean all endgames with up to seven pieces)

Avatar of MARattigan
Kyobir wrote:

Chess has been solved (by that I mean all endgames with up to seven pieces)

Not quite.

No positions with castling rights even if you're talking about weakly solved. (And a lot of the Lomonosov DTM solutions are no longer freely available, if available at all, though that's not strictly relevant.)

Avatar of MARattigan

Sorry. I thought I was commenting on other people's posts.

Avatar of DiogenesDue
MARattigan wrote:

We already have a viable method for shortcutting the process, it's called tablebase generation.  Unfortunately, while it's a viable method (I should say viable methods) for shortcutting the process, it still doesn't result in a viable process.

For example a KNN v K tablebase contains around 12.5 million positions under FIDE basic rules (in most people's parlance), but less than a hundred will be included in a Nalimov tablebase (possibly a few thousand considered in total). By far the biggest reductions arise when the 50/75 move and triple/quintuple repetition rules are included.   

Granted a factor of 4.82 is not particularly significant in terms of 10^44, but it should at least mean @tygxc starts talking about 11 years using 3 cloud computers + 7 maids with 7 mops instead of 5 years, if he's going to be consistent in his own terms. It would, of course, be an insignificant step in the right direction in real terms.

Tablebases are the solution, but not a shortcut, and we're already in agreement that they are the only viable path right now.  Which is why chess will not be solved in our lifetimes.