Chess will never be solved, here's why

@9692

"i understood it perfectly actually" ++ Then you would understand that Chess is a draw and the 105 ICCF WC Finals draws are perfectly played.

"a value for tempo" ++ That has been established for over 100 years.

"numerous counter examples were brought to your attention"
++ No, not one. Present a tentative black win against the possible white moves 1 e4 and 1 d4, and I show how white can steal that strategy.

"a proof counters ANY of black's moves" ++ Present any of your tentative black winning sequences and I will show how white can steal it.
Anyway, I have proven chess is a draw, neither a white win, nor a black win.

none of this "herik and this GM guy agree with me" bull, you are disrespecting their work with your disgraceful misinterpretations of their comments. im showing the mathematicians your claims and "logic" verbatim.

ah yes, because i dont agree with your fallacies, i must not understand what you are saying, of course you would have that fantasy.

you still arent answering my question.

""numerous counter examples were brought to your attention"
++ No, not one. Present a tentative black win against the possible white moves 1 e4 and 1 d4, and I show how white can steal that strategy."

any move that black moves cannot be strategy stolen. because by parity white cannot lose a tempo over black. you admitted it yourself.

and since you cannot prove that those moves are not a black win, you cannot claim that they arent black wins for your "proof".

fun fact, i showed this argument by myself to multiple math majors and one of the mathematicians, and they fully agreed with me.

why do all the mathematicians and math majors i talk to fully agree with me?

E4 E5 cannot be strategy stolen. you will say 1.e3 E5 e4 is a strategy steal, but you ASSUME that black moves e5, which is false. black doesnt have to play that. black is just fine responding 1.e3 e6.

I talked to a 13 year old, and completely unprompted they immediately pointed out this flaw in your logic. i didnt even need to show them what was wrong, you are just so completely fallacious that even little kids can easily point out your fallacies.

you still havent given your own mathematics education.

@9694

"according to you" ++ 'bring all openings to technical endgames', that is weakly solving Chess.

"chess is a draw because these games are perfect, these games are perfect because chess is a draw" ++ No. Chess is a draw and the 105 games must be perfect, because there is no other plausible explanation for 105 draws out of 105 games at top chess level.

I say the only plausible explanation for the 105 draws is:
0 error: 105 games
1 error: 0 games
2 errors: 0 games
3 errors: 0 games
4 errors: 0 games

Try to come up with any plausible explanation:
0 error: ... games
1 error: ... games
2 errors: ... games
3 errors: ... games
4 errors: ... games

Elroch doesn't have the intelligence to understand that you are damaging his reputation even further (and it's damaged enough already) every time you brown-nose your heartfelt approbation of his divine services.

The activities of an inadequate little toady are proof that his master is non compus mentus. If he had anything about him whatsoever, he'd be really embarrassed by you. If he isn't embarrassed it speaks volumes about him.

To be quite clear about what I've learned on this site, I have never regarded Elroch as a particularly intelligent person. Knowledgeable in many areas, yes, but definitely not an intelligent intellect one can admire. A repeated inability, over the years, to understand very much at all, together with a ridiculous vanity and willingness to ridicule all and sundry who don't comply with his edicts confirm that he's playing at being the biggest boy in the park.

I'm used to dealing with intelligent people. I can tell the difference.

I want to make this clear, because Elroch seems to be having yet another argument with me where he's out of his depth. Yes, he's a mathematician of sorts. Statisticians were never quite considered mathematicians. But a statistician who likens the result of a chess game to the result of a coin toss, as he's done here three times at least, and attempts to apply a simple, statistical analysis over 1000 games doesn't know what he's talking about. The results of chess games are not random even though those results can be indeterminate. The results completely depend on the quality of the moves being played and therefore ty is partly right. Elroch is using dishonest arguments because he doesn't have the brains to formulate good ones.

"Chess is a draw and the 105 games must be perfect, because there is no other plausible explanation for 105 draws out of 105 games at top chess level."

"plausible" doesnt equal proof. and "top chess level" is a subjective claim.

ah yes a "proof" out of "plausible" and subjective claims.

this is why my professors laughed at you

@9704

"plausible doesnt equal proof"
++ Try to come up with a plausible error distribution that explains 105 draws in 105 games.

0 error: ... games
1 error: ... games
2 errors: ... games
3 errors: ... games
4 errors: ... games

You cannot and nobody can, and that is proof.

"top chess level is a subjective claim." ++ It is not subjective, it is objective.
The World Championship Finals of the International Correspondence Chess Federation is the strongest chess on our planet. There are 17 ICCF (grand)masters who qualified,
they use engines and play at 50 days per 10 moves.

To be fair, it was supposed to be a weak solution, which is basically algorithmic, even if the algorithms reside in Svesnikov's mind. Yet another illustration of why Herik's terminology is confusing and inadequate.

I was one of the first here (maybe the first) to come out with a proper calculation of the time required even for the weak solution. I didn't like to be explicit regarding the time taken for the so called strong solution, so I called it "millions of years", thinking that I wouldn't be believed because the real answer had come out at billions of years. I forget the precise number but I think it was longer than the supposed age of the universe, done on a single, state of the art computer. Obviously the computer would have turned into a pile of dust and the planet it was performed on would be vapourised long before it was completed.

I think that all arguments regarding strategy theft in chess are false if they do not mention that chess is too complex at least to be sure about such claims. I actually think the concept is bogus. Chess cannot be regarded as a finite game in that sense. In fact it's only the artificial 75 move rule that makes it appear to be finite. Without it, chess could continue until a second repetition of any position is forced. Chess is so complex that people claiming that black could have a zugzwang on white are saying that in the same spirit that they might claim that an elephant with 18 legs did a tap dance on their kitchen table at midnight, lit by the glow of 17 fairies.

'Weakly solved' is kind of an oxymoron.
There's an aspect of the computer project not discussed much yet.
The time taken to 'solve' all positions with 8 pieces on the board.
That's a key quantity.
Whatever time it took for the computers to evaluate all the positions including some of them as illegal or impossible ...
Adding even one piece - to solve for 9 pieces - looks kind of 'prohibitive'.

After that another and so on.
Here's why:
If there's 8 pieces on the board - then there's up to 56 squares for a ninth piece to be added to.
But eight kinds of pieces Q,R,B,N. White or black.
And two kinds of pawns black or white - on up to 48 squares.
That means the new upper bound of positions to be processed is a product of the old count of such and ((56x8) + (48x2)) In other words C x 544.
Say it took a year for 8 pieces.
That's 544 years for 9 pieces.
And over 25,000 years for ten pieces.

Extrapolating for 32 pieces and even after allowing for less squares for pieces to be added to - how about at least 30 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years to do the whole job? And that's just at the final stage ...
Estimated time of the Big Bang ... 'only' 13 billion years ago.
Estimated time the sun will engulf the earth ...
a 'measly' 7 billion years and change from now. Mars after that.
So if humanity wants to continue the tomfoolery of that project with a room full of supercomputers on interstellar spaceships ... with a whole lot of better things to do ... there's going to have to be some star-hopping.

@9707

"Weakly solved is kind of an oxymoron."
++ That is how it is called. That is what Schaeffer did for Checkers.

"The time taken to 'solve' all positions with 8 pieces on the board." ++ That is different. The 8-men endgame table base is being generated backwards from the 7-men endgame table base.

"Whatever time it took for the computers to evaluate all the positions including some of them as illegal or impossible" ++ The 7-men endgame table base contains illegal positions.
The computers did not evaluate, they traced from 6-men, traced from 5-men, traced from 4 men, traced from 3 men.

"Adding even one piece - to solve for 9 pieces - looks kind of 'prohibitive'." ++ For now yes.
But the point of weakly solving a game is to avoid having to deal with all legal positions.

"Extrapolating for 32 pieces"
++ That would be strongly solving chess and is beyond present technology.

Maybe someone could start a forum listing who are the most brilliant and who are the least intelligent posters on chess.com. Then this forum might return to a discussion of the actual question.

You missed my points tygxc.
'tracing' is still 'processing'.
If it takes a year to 'trace' from 7 pieces to 8 pieces - that's till a year.
And its going to take 544 times as long to get to 9 pieces.
You don't get out of this with the word 'trace'.
I already predicted that you'd want to reject the logic.
That's fine. You can.
But the numbers don't lie. They multiply.
Cruelly.
You want to solve this - you better have a pretty comfortable spaceship.
Will you have a swimming pool on board?
And machines to maintain 'life-stasis' for 3 x 10 to the 61st power years?

And it wouldn't be 'strongly solving' because you already excluded castling - so its not 'chess' - its 'wish-simple'.
But I admire your courage guy.
You're doing a good job - however much some of the others don't like it.
Or like to not like it.

You're one of the better posters mpaetz.
Very few people obsess over things like IQ tests.
and abilities to associate 3d shapes presented on a 2d piece of paper or screen.
Its an inane ability of little use ...

@9710

"If it takes a year to 'trace' from 7 pieces to 8 pieces"
++ All 423,836,835,667,331 7-men positions to all 38,176,306,877,748,245 8-men positions.

"And it wouldn't be strongly solving" ++ It would be, it would lead to a 32-men table base. You could enter any ridiculous position and get if it is won/drawn/lost and how. That however is beyond present technology. That is why weakly solving is the only feasible option.

"you already excluded castling" ++ That is besides the point. 7-men endgame table bases do not include castling rights, because once 7 men are reached kings have moved.
You cannot have a reasonable game that reaches 7 men and one king can still castle.
It would be a minor complication: a factor 16: 2 white and 2 black castling flags.
Likewise you could add an en passant flag, but that does not matter either.

No tygxc - it wouldn't be strongly solving because you excluded castling.
I'm not going to 'argue' with you though.
And 'weakly solving' isn't valid either.
But you will keep your 'stance' though.
And that's Good for You! Right on!

And castling does come up in some endgame positions.
Including in games.
Again - I won't 'argue' though.
You say what you say. I say what I say. And others say what they say.
I say - 3 x 10 to the 61st years at least - even for 'wish simple' processing.
And I almost forgot - U Gotz to double that because of according to whose move it is.
And U ain't gonna havv thet kinda Tahhhhmmmm Guy.
Nobodee gonna.
See ya next time.

@9713

"it wouldn't be strongly solving because you excluded castling" ++ I did not exclude anything, the people who compiled the 7-men endgame table base excluded it as it adds nothing useful.

"weakly solving isn't valid" ++ It is valid. That is what Schaeffer did for Checkers.
Checkers is Solved

"And castling does come up in some endgame positions."
++ No. Show one (1) game where castling happened in a 7-men position.