Chess will never be solved, here's why

@9520

"Optimal play is not determinable by either you, or engines."
++ The 105 ICCF World Championship games are optimal play, not by the engines used,
nor by me, but by the results themselves: 105 draws in 105 games.

"It will be determinable once chess is solved" ++ That is where we now about are.
Weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined to achieve the game theoretic value against any opposition. The strategy to achieve the game theoretic value of the draw against any opposition is to follow an ICCF World Championship Finals drawn game for as long as possible and then proceed with an engine at 5 days / move until a 7-men endgame table base draw or a prior 3-fold repetition is reached.

I played 604 (that's even lesser than 960) blitz games on Lichess and I can recall some of them setups being really sharp and give greater advantage to the side that opens the game than another.

As I mentioned before and what I believe would be fair is that players build up their starting positions with one piece at a time with the white starting where black is not forced to follow symmetrically.

@9480

"I tried 10. Ncb5" ++ It does not matter. If white plays differently, then white loses differently.
1 g4? loses while it weakens the king's side.

with a 7-men endgame table base win.

I understand that it seems that way but I got a strong impression that it would be due to not really thinking about the opening position. The standard position is really flexible and 960 positions are often very much less so, which means that there often isn't the variety of opening moves, especially for the second player. You can't just play normal types of strategy like occupying the centre and expecting it will always equalise. Sometimes it's strongest to start with a flank attack or make moves that would be rather odd looking in a normal setup. But half an hour looking at possible paths of developmnt for both sides before you make a single move is necessary.

Interestingly, I found a pattern, which was that at some point, the situation on the board starts to look more like a normal chess game from the standard position and it tended to be just around this point that I'd get a winning advantage.

I think that can be explained by assuming that the disposition of the pieces in the standard setup is the most flexible one and therefore when the position is just beginning to look like a standard position, that's when your pieces are starting to coordinate well. I found that on each occasion I managed to get my pieces coordinating and maade a useful pawn break before my opponent and that occurred whether I was white or black, due to my opponents' not looking hard enough at possible patterns of development for both sides,

Why did white play 12. Qxd4 in that game, where ed looks better and then seemingly deliberately give away the c pawn when white wasn't developed enough to take advantage of a sacrifice?

I'm not buying it, at least not yet. I think that playing g4 is equivalent to giving away two tempi.

That would be playing g4 in the first place, which is a wasted move and then one tempo defending it. Two tempi isn't enough to win.

@9566

"Two tempi isn't enough to win." ++ That is correct. White can play 1 h3 and 2 a3 and still hold the draw. The problem with 1 g4? is not tempi, or is not losing the pawn, but is weakening the king's side. White can no longer comfortably castle O-O to bring the king to safety and connect the rooks. Castling gains 2 tempi: 3 moves Kf0, Rf1, Kg1 at the cost of 1 move O-O.

I think white can probably hang on by playing sensible moves and not giving pawns away for nothing.

Previous to this conversation, I believed that maybe 1. g4 loses by force but now I think it probably doesn't although white must play very accurately.

"++ Chess is known to be a draw." known, but not proven. ask any mathematician.

"++ The 105 ICCF World Championship games are optimal play, not by the engines used,
nor by me, but by the results themselves: 105 draws in 105 games."

thats not a proof of optimization.

try again

tygxc why do you continue to ignore the suggestion of trying literally every possible white move after g4? by definition a mathematical proof addresses all of these.

you are still yet to give your math education. you claim to know better than all of the math professionals that ive talked to, so surely you can give your own math publishes?

Of course, right moves always converge to the similar patterns, the same in the classical chess as in the 960 fischer random. It is in the feature of the pieces movement which is the same in both variants.

What you underestimate or you are not aware of is the potential of a random position that could be decisive in some cases. Standard chess starting position is definitely not the most versatile, I experienced this in my own games.

@9565

"ed looks better"

++ It does not matter. If white plays differently, then white loses differently. After 1 g4? the loss may take long, but is just as inevitable as after 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? or 1 e4 Nf6 2 Qh5?

with checkmate in 18.

@9572

"the suggestion of trying literally every possible white move after g4?"
++ There is no need to. 1 g4? loses just like 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? or 1 e4 Nf6 2 Qh5?
Please feel free and try to find an improvement for white and analyse for yourself with any engine.

I would play 15. gf and 16. Bg4. White is surviving and black is running out of pieces.

Trying to run for the hills with white's king just gets white all tangled up. Why do it when white can defend?

Difference of opinion, then.

My experience with playing 11 daily games and maybe analysing another 20 is that although the initial position may look daunting, there's always a way to defend. I always used engine aided analysis to check my ideas. Admittedly, the engine was sometimes completely wrong and kept preferring moves that looked even crazier than those I was playing but when I looked harder I rarely found justification for those moves. It was simply a momentary command of a few extra squares that tempted the engine, rather than good development. So my opinion is that there are no forced wins in Chess960. We already know there is no forced win from the standard initial position.

It may be because I'm feeling good about myself, because yesterday on my 73rd birthday I played in my first rapidplay tournament for many years and won it with 5/5. Played some people with FIDE 1800 to 1900 and had two whites and three blacks too.

@9575

'White is surviving and black is running out of pieces.'
++ White is not surviving. After 1 g4? the loss is inevitable.
Each piece traded brings the 7-men endgame table base win closer.

With a 6-men endgame table base win.

I think that the reason black's advantage remains at round about -0.7, no matter what white does is because white is playing engine moves based on short term assessments rather than more strategically powerful moves. If black really was winning, I think the advantage would start to show. I've played many hedgehog-like positions where I'm given a similar disadvantage by the engine or maybe even up to 1.8 and yet on carefully analysing, there hasn't been a forced win and often I've gone on to win.

I'm afraid all you have achieved is to convince me that 1. g4 is a very bad move for white but is one that probably doesn't lose by force.