Chess will never be solved, here's why

Saying we have a machine to solve chess would be a useless hypothetical, also how long can a chess game go until someone gets an advantage and how long can the opponent prolong not getting checkmated? How many calculations would it need for that to be "solved"? Because chess games do have a max possible move count with the 50 move rule. Would like some insight and hopefully I'm not asking useless questions

I've spent probably a quarter of my working life debugging system problems. In that time I've come across two instances of machine bugs (one in microcode and one probably ditto) plus two (essentially the same) that were either the machine or right in the heart of error recovery routines in the operating system. (That's not including my own PCs going poo.) A lot more problems with bugs in language code e.g. statistics code that runs out of precision and gives duff results without telling you.. There have been well publicised potential logical problems with computer chips. I've spent another quarter of my working life installing and applying fixes to mainframe operating systems and components , the fixes released must have run to hundreds of thousands.

I came to the conclusion that any program of a moderate size usually does three completely distinct things; firstly what the users think it does, secondly what the documentation says it does and thirdly what it does, the exceptions being that the second is sometimes absent.

But those problems pale into insignificance if you're handling large amounts of data over a significant period compared with human fumble problems. Operators mounting the wrong tapes, failing to spot error messages, running things in the wrong order etc.

So I would say there are two chances of Schaeffer's calculations running perfectly over the length of time it took, the number of systems involved and the volume of data processed.

Of course if you run the same approach on separate systems with different developers and run a full check of the results it would greatly increase the confidence (I believe that was done with some of the tablebases).

The problem is you can't. Not only is most of Scheffer's result missing because there was no room to save it, but even if it all ran without error and you could run exactly the same code without error again you wouldn't get the same solution to check.

@12172

"how long can a chess game go until someone gets an advantage and how long can the opponent prolong not getting checkmated?"
++ The ongoing ICCF World Championship Finals now has 109 draws out of 109 games and they end in draws in average 39 moves. https://www.iccf.com/event?id=100104

"How many calculations would it need for that to be "solved"?"
++ Weakly solving chess needs to consider 10^17 positions = Sqrt (10^37*10 / 10,000).
The 17 ICCF World Championship finalists looked at 1.9*10^17 positions = 90*10^6 positions/s/server * 2 servers/finalist * 17 finalists * 3600 s/h * 24 h/d * 365.25 d/a * 2 a

"chess games do have a max possible move count with the 50 move rule"
++ The 50-moves rule plays no role at all.
Games end in draws in average 39 moves, long before the 50-moves rule can trigger.

tygxc why arent you addressing the fact that we've proven you wrong again and again?

do you get some sort of sick kick from spreading misinformation?

". The reduction from 10^34 (or 10^32) to 10^17 is by assuming perfect Alpha-Beta search for the weak solution"

but you dont list the computational effort required for that lmfao

I used to be confused as to hwo somebody like tygxc could be so confidently incorrect for so long without being strictly anti science but thats when I saw the terrence howard podcast.

tygxc is just terrence howard. He cites a ton of fancy terms but he doesnt understand any of the principles., nor does he understand basic logic.

It's junk. It relies on unambiguously failing to do what is necessary, but guessing that doing so doesn't matter.

I had never heard of Terence Howard, but now I see he is one of the people who have realised that for every truth there is an alternative truth for which you can find a market. Admittedly that market consists of idiots, but why should that matter?

tygxc's 'strongest' position so far ... as in 'least weak' is something that he just mentioned but has been saying for years.
Like this:
"1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? loses for white, without needing any game tree."
Now I would say that's reasonable.
White simply 'drops his bishop' for a compensation that is just too much less.
(black then has doubled isolated a-pawns)
So I would say that the computer not bothering to analyze further from there - is reasonable 'approximate solving'. A term unfortunately coined is 'weakly solving'.
After bxa6 there ... black is not 'weak'. He's strong. A bishop up.
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but tygxc is using the logic of that one argument - to build illogic.
For the computer to keep dismissing 'further game tree' on any line because its materially up -
isn't legitimate because 'compensation' varies and it isn't easy to assign definitions of what is 'enough compensation' or 'more than enough compensation' ...
but tygxc would then be likely to use 'computer evaluation' ... like have the computer 'dismiss' if its evaluation is for more than two point advantage for one side.
But he doesn't get it that that's a circular argument that fails to take into account that the computer is fallible and hasn't 'solved' chess in the first place and can't do so.
He's arguing that the computer could validate itself and is right because it says so.
Does tygxc believe in his own false argument or is he being deceitful?
Has tygxc fallen into a pitfall because in tactics puzzles - the puzzle doesn't continue beyond the solution moves? Has tygxc 'fallen' because players Resign in lost positions?
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Experience and observation over decades tells me that such things aren't A or B.
Whoever - if invested enough - stops caring much whether they think they believe their own nonsense or not.
So they're not even aware either way.
Is there another specific instance of this in tygxc's spiels?
Yes.
It becomes more apparent when he asserts 'We don't Care about the number of operations per second that supercomputers can do - we only Care about Nodes per second!'
That is basically revealing about tygxc's internal illogic.
He doesn't care because he doesn't know.
He doesn't know because he doesn't want to know.
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You'll find this in many crass denial of logic or denial of science or denial of reality situations around the world.
Do flat-earthers know they're pushing nonsense or they think they aren't?
They stopped caring long before - as to which - and they stopped being internally aware of same. And don't want to be.
Result - nobody can talk to them - about them.
And the result is projection. Which always involves falsehood by the person so doing.
'No! Its You! And MSM! Main Stream Media. The world is Flat!'

When somebody lies - but they internally choose to believe their own lie and then maintain in that way - are they still then lying?
The short answer is yes.
Is anybody exempt from this?
If you tell yourself that something is true that isn't - are you lying?
Some would say 'if whoever was given false data to work with - then that could be an instance about being honest in telling a falsehood'.
That's the medium answer.
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Could a computer be assigned to simply analyze all lines of chess and stop analyzing any lines where the advantage for one side has reached +5 ?
Could chess be 'approximately solved' that way?
Or to have a chance - would the 'stopping advantage' have to be as little as 0.5 ?
That would be ridiculous.
Stockfish could 'solve' chess right now if the stopping advantage only had to be 0.1
It would Solve chess in seconds. Already has.

The issue is tyxgcs claim.makes it that chess is likely a draw but it doesn't prove anything unfortunately for him

i just noticed that tygxc's style of commentary was very reminiscent of terrence howard's.

Right. I have not delved far enough to learn how he presents his absurd nonsense.

He's forgetting that high probabilities doesn't mean you assume he's assuming it means that it is true

those advantages can only really be useful in pruning one side for a "solve" so im not entirely sure.

Let me make an observation. Stockfish is the strongest chess player in the world. It is so based on just three essential things:

1. its positional evaluation routine
2. its ability to prioritise search of variations guided by this
3. doing this very fast

Up to quite recently, many years were spent to handcraft a positional evaluation routine, with many contributors improving it, testing the improvements and iterating this process.

Then all this was replaced by the training of one neural network from scratch. This single change - ignoring all the human input and previous testing - increased Stockfish rating by a massive amount, around 100 points, by far the biggest step since it had become world class.

Using this neutral network and its algorithm for searching, it does not ignore positions like 1. e4 e5 2.Ba6. Rather it gives them a low priority. When they are near the start of analysis it will definitely analyse a lot of other more sensible looking stuff first, but when a lot of good lines have been quite well analysed, it will use a little CPU time to look a bit deeper at 2. Ba6. Just in case. It leaves no stone unturned (it just doesn't turn really bad-looking stones until it has had a good look at all the better looking stones).

The "reasonable" choice to ignore 2.Ba6 completely either shows that Stockfish is getting it wrong and needs some advice from us humans or that it is only approximately reasonable and is actually pedantically misguided. If you want to know which is true, it's probably best to think of the comparison between many years of collaborated development of a positional evaluation routine and leaving the neutral network do it itself.

I was referring to Terrence Howard. I think you thought "he" and "his" referred to @tygxc.

Terence Howard. Does Terence believe his own nonsense?
Or is he just grandstanding?
Or is is a kind of 'devil's advocate' behaviour and his real message is 'don't be like this'.
I don't know. Probably won't know.
I took one glance a few days ago at TH's public commentary and decided I didn't want to see any more.
I would say that Terence Howard is a much much better person than Alex Jones though.
But that's not hard.
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Also from MEGA
"When somebody lies - but they internally choose to believe their own lie and then maintain in that way - are they still then lying?The short answer is yes.
Is anybody exempt from this?"
reply from MEGA ...
"i'd say that nobody is exempt from this, but our intellectual worth is determined by our effort to be true in our knowledge"
I agree. Which would mean that 'O' (@Optimissed) has zero intellectual worth but in the case of tygxc - does it apply to him too?
tygxc keeps making the same mistakes over and over.
What ever brought him to this?
My guess would be chessplaying and chess study and chess puzzles.
Puzzles are solved without always playing through to mate.
Players in losing positions often Resign. Sometimes even mistakenly resign.
Elroch appears to be suggesting that trying to assign human tendencies in the computer programming - is a mistake.
If I've got that right about Elroch's reply notes to my post.
I should make a separate post replying to Elroch. Will.

Yup