Chess will never be solved, here's why

<<The strong solution becomes ultra-weak (in the real sense) because any meaning is lost and a solution does or should imply meaning and relevance.>>

If you can't understand that, you have no business speaking here and pretending to be intelligent. It's a sham. You only imagine it.

@ Elroch
Look, I've known you on here since you joined in 2008. I was here before you. We didn't get on when I was in my previous incarnation and I knew there was something deeply wrong. You were much better around three years ago but there's a regression and it's clear why you keep the company you do. Just stop pretending that you're in full command of your abilities. Stop trying to hurt others and elevate yourself. I'm sure Patriot wouldn't have come in and made the point that I was exactly right in my assessment of you, if you hadn't attacked her. I have no idea if you did but it's in your nature to do so. Calm down, stick to your friends and others will try to keep away from you, as they do already. But remember, if you follow others to threads like this, as you did; and try to take it over, as you did; and push others around, as you did, people aren't going to take too kindly to it.

again the pattern - 'hard guy's' total failure to follow his own advice
and we got a 'strawman' too - 'people's right to express themselves' that he confused with his 'instructions' and his delusion that he 'thinks faster and more accurately'.
Plus he finally got a supporter (fortunately not the forum's opening poster)  and he now wants to 'pronounce victory' immediately and is now filled with much hope.  

In situations like this - there's often an issue:
Does the person believe his own nonsense?
'psychotic'?  use of that term ... projecting again ?
His feelings of 'superiority' are remarkable ...
suggesting that the three paranoias are worth mentioning ...
paranoid schizophrenia (probably not) - classical paranoia (a rarer thing but probably not the case here)
and paranoid personality disorder.
'delusions less common in this disorder but when present are transient and not well organized'
Bingo !   Fits his pattern.  Consistently.  

Can all of this be 'reconciled' with the forum topic ?
Maybe - maybe not.
If the 'translation' of the forum title is something like:
"you really do have time for this topic ?  Why?  How?"

Issue: can progress be made with such discussion ?
Some. 
Overview of the game.   
Relationships of chess with modern technology.
Individual views of same. 
But not that much progress on those.
But some progress made on 'exposing' too.

The forum subject is partly about 'perceptions' of 'solved' as they might pertain to chess.
And perceptions are more about psychology than they are about maths and physical sciences.  (except for brain physiology perhaps?  No because the human brain is not 'solved' either.)
So - the psychology of perception is relevant here.  
(constant occurrence - when various psychologies are mentioned - often the reaction will be the behaviours mentioned instead of discussing the behaviours. )

#1072
There is a massive difference between a weak and a strong solution.

A strong solution i.e. a 32-men table base would require to visit 10^36 positions, that would take 10^27 seconds = 3 billion billion years on a 10^9 nodes/s cloud engine and require at least 10^36 bits of storage draw / no draw = 10^12 yottabyte. That is not feasible.

A weak solution can toss away huge numbers of positions that are nor reachable and are thus not relevant because each pawn move and each capture are irreversible. That leaves about 10^18 relevant positions.

A weak solution can also prune away the openings to look at by a factor 10. If 1 e4 e5 draws then for a weak solution it is not necessary to establish if 1 c5 draws as well or not.
That leaves 10^17 positions, doable on one 10^9 nodes/second cloud engine in 10^8 seconds = 3 years.

The evaluation draw/win/loss does not come from the evaluation function, but from the 7-men table base once it is hit or from a previous draw by repetition of positions or stalemate.

As calculated 3 verification passes retracting all white moves lead to less than 1 error per 10^20 positions so that is enough to prove for the 10^17 positions.

10^17 positions are reached from 28 moves deep at 4 branches per move. That is enough too: as we see from ICCF or human grandmaster play games do not last more than 28 moves beyond the point where they deviate from their predecessor to reaching a 7-men table base.

"3 billion billion years on a 10^9 nodes/s cloud engine and require at least 10^36 bits of storage draw / no draw = 10^12 yottabyte. That is not feasible."
Now you're talking.
Three billion billion years on a 'Cloud' computer.

And I like that term 'yottabyte'. 
It could be the name of a new ice cream sandwich at fast food places.  

Three billion billion years - that's more years than the number of fatal plutonium doses in the bloodstream from one gram of plutonium?
Plutonium is the number one poison apparently.  In theory technically.
I read somewhere that it only takes 10 to the minus 12 of a gram of plutonium  in the blood to kill a person.
Comparing 10 to the 12th power - with three billion billion years ...
that's 3 x 10 to the 18th power.  Still less than the Avogadro number. 
But that's 'enough' years.  
Just 10 to the 18th.  Years.  Without the three.  Hey that might be more than enough time to travel to the Andromeda galaxy.  Or even to our nearest other star.  Alpha Centauri.  By conventional travel.  Also known as Betelgeuse and Rigel I believe.

I am not sure if that was because you didn't know that there was already a key concept called "ultra-weak solution", or that you are ignored the requirement not to redefine terms that already have an accepted definition in a technical discussion (because doing so would obviously cause confusion every time the term was used). Also you didn't "redefine" the term anywhere anywhere other people can see.

If you have a new concept (this is not clear) you need a new term for it.

It wasn't a new concept, so much as an ultra-weak joke, based on the literal meaning of ultra-weak, which I was using; whereas that computing related meaning is more like jargon and has a special meaning of its own. You probably should have understood it but I can understand when people are in a World dominated by one kind of thinking, they can forget the existence of a wider World.

I took a look for you last night, in the Cambridge University Pure Maths Department. It must have taken years of yoga to be able to do that trick with the inverted namaste on your head. You make it look easy! I noticed that you have an MMath. I'm sorry for assuming you have a doctorate and it must have been embarrassing when I several times referred to you as having a PhD. I wondered why you didn't correct me but then I understood the reason.

I'm fed up with constant battles. btickler will be back this evening and it's best if we try to patch up our relationship, for what it's worth, before then, rather than give away anything that will encourage further trolling. I would appreciate it. I credit you with a lot more sense than the other two have. This feuding needs to stop and I don't consider you wholly to blame. Thanks.

Where in that link exactly?

I looked through the Wiki page a bit.
Work on 8 pieces onboard began in 2021.
And the article reminded me of something I had found out on my own about 30 years ago -
that there are ten types of squares on the board. 
But that doesn't work for pawns though.  Nor for castling.
 
The ten square types can be defined by the lengths of their diagonals.
I ran across this while I was determining how many kinds of knight move there are on the board.  21 in fact.  
But the article did seem to say that the tablebases take en passant into account but they seem to skirt around castling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase]]

Yes, there are 10 equivalence classes of squares under the action of the 8-fold symmetry group of the chessboard (ignoring the directionality that only affects pawns and castling).

4 of them have 4 squares (the corners of the 4 nested squares of width 8, 6, 4 and 2), the other 6 have 8 squares (the sides of the nested squares)

Hi @Elroch !
Yes - 'nested' squares.  As it happens there are a total of 204 large and basic and 'nested' squares on the board.
But unlike the ten square types - I doubt the 204 figure could be of any usefulness in helping players visualize the board and pieces and piece motions and controls of squares.

Regarding the ten square types - there's different ways to define them.
Does it have any application to chessplaying?
Yes. Helping to mentally visualize the board.

Four types of squares on the two long diagonals
Three more square types of the ten on the four 7-square diagonals adjacent to the long diagonals.
(they and the long diagonals share the four central squares) 
two more square types on the four bishop 'original' six-square diagonals (three altogether - they again share. They share the eight squares like d3 and c5 
(which are the only 8 squares where a knight can move directly between the same square types.)
And finally - one more and final type of the ten on the Royal squares and their corresponding squares on the wings.  

Each of the ten sets of squares has a uniqueness that helps to visualize them on the board.
The eight squares like c2 and b3 I call the 'catseye' squares.
The only squares that are not on an edge and also not on a central file nor central rank nor central diagonal. 
Can be compared to the Union Jack flag !
Those 8 squares are a knight's only route to or from the corners too.

Weakly solving chess = produce at least one complete ideal game (all moves start to end) with proof that each move is optimal for the player making it.

Consider the following game

It ends in a draw. It is a candidate ideal game. Proof that each move is optimal consists in retracting all of white moves starting from move 36 backwards and determine that alternative white moves produce nothing more than a draw either. 3 verification runs of retractions suffice.

I think its invalid right away.
How are you going to prove that e5 for black and Nf3 for white are 'optimal' ?
Or 1) e4 either.
There are arguments that 1) e4 is sub-optimal for white.
1) d4 is solider.  The e4 move loses the option to protect the diagonal leading into f2 - by e3.  Plus the e4 pawn is unprotected and can become a target.  It is also not available to provide control of d4.
Also - a pawn at d5 can become more powerful while less vulnerable than a pawn at e5.  
And - if memory serves - 1) Nf3 has the lowest loss percentage.  Yes that might have changed.  I read it somewhere and I don't have a link for it.

Yes: only 26% black wins against 1. Nf3

Only move that has done better is 1. a4 (but in only 34 master games, and not significant)

I tried to quote and post a reply to #1087 and got a red banner warning instead.

The way that comes most naturally to me is to label them by two numbers:

1. The distance to the squares on the edge of the board (0, 1, 2, or 3)
2. The distance to a long diagonal (0, 1, 2, or 3)

Not all combinations occur, for obvious reasons. The ones that do are:

(0, 0), (0, 1), (0, 2), (0, 3)

(1, 0), (1, 1), (1, 2)

(2, 0), (2, 1)

(3, 0)

You have previously mentioned another nice choice - the lengths of the two diagonals on which a square lives:

(1, 8), (2, 7) (3, 6), (4, 5)

(3, 8), (4, 7), (5, 6)

(5, 8) (6, 7)

(7, 8)

[Arranged to match the above]

Looks like a dumb bot allows the post but bans quoting it!