Chess will never be solved, here's why

proof?

i have to go. bye

I don't need to see someone like you. Bye

This thread is crazy.

I realised from the start that the debate arises because people have different definitions of what chess being solved is.

I have not however looked through all 609 pages and this has probably been discussed already.

Is chess being solved finding the "perfect" most accurate chess game, or finding the best move in every given position? (of which there are more of than atoms that make up the world probably)

I agree.
tygxc does a 'great job' of obfuscation and one-sided presentation and evasive tactics and pushing of his false information.
But in a much stronger more self-secure way than the three climate science deniers.

@12168

"White has better tries available." ++ In this case 6 c4 was a novelty: predecessor games went 6 Nec3. White could have tried 13 fxe5 d6 14 e6 fxe6 15 Rf1 exd5 16 Bg5 but apparently deeper analysis showed it better to draw with 13 Bf1.

"each of those games with the White pieces"
++ In ICCF white or black do not matter as much as in over the board human play at 3 minutes/move. The few decisive games in previous years' Finals and in Preliminaries, Semifinals, Candidates are with black as well as with white.

"to minimize his risk of losing" ++ Of course they do not want to lose.

"Tournament strategy in action"
++ To become World Champion: win 2 and draw 14. To win 2 they depend on two opponents making a mistake, so it is unwise to aim for draws, they follow from themselves.

"players are intentionally seeking draws" ++ No, they avoid losing and try to win if possible.

"deliberately stunting their play" ++ No, they play sharp stuff: Najdorf, Catalan.
If they all want to draw then there are easier ways.

"in the interest of self-preservation" ++ Yes, a loss means out of contention.

"they see a draw on the horizon - they may steer quickly toward it"
++ No, they steer towards playable positions. 'I always try to get playing positions' - Dronov

"attempts at decisive outcomes" ++ They depend on a mistake to win. In previous ICCF WC Finals there were decisive games, every year fewer. Some were due to clerical errors, personal problems, a hasty move, or dubious openings (King's Indian Defense, Caro-Kann Defense).
Now they take care to avoid clerical errors or hasty moves and they avoid the dubious, at least partially refuted openings. That is why they now draw. They have learned.

"the engines involved don't have their contempt-for-draw parameters set to maximum"
++ They want to win the TCEC Superfinals, not lose it. High contempt for draw leads to losses.

@12180

"people have different definitions of what chess being solved is"
++ definitions are clear, there are 3 kinds of solved:

'Ultra-weakly solved means that the game-theoretic value of the initial position has been determined,
weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined to achieve the game-theoretic value against any opposition,
and strongly solved is being used for a game for which such a strategy has been determined for all legal positions.'

There are different interpretations of what 'opposition' means: a puristic interpretation that it means all legal moves, and a pragmatic interpretation that it means all reasonable moves.
There are different interpretations of what a 'strategy' means: a narrow interpretation that it must be a game tree, and a broader interpretation that also a set of rules is valid.

"every given position?" ++ There are 10^44 legal chess positions,
and 10^38 possible from 1 box of 32 chess men and a spare queen of both colors.
Of these 10^17 are relevant to weakly solve chess.

@12183

"I hope you didn't dodge" ++ I am free to answer any posts and any parts of these as I see fit.
I feel not obliged to answer troll comments about 12 imaginary friends supposed to know something about math and literate, able to read and write.

wow tygxc, way to not address any of what people said. claiming "there are different interpretations" when you are using incorrect definitions isnt addressing the fact that THERE ARE NO DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS.

"There are different interpretations of what 'opposition' means: a puristic interpretation that it means all legal moves and a pragmatic interpretation that it means all reasonable moves.
There are different interpretations of what a 'strategy' means: a narrow interpretation that it must be a game tree and a broader interpretation that also a set of rules is valid."

there are no different interpretations. If it isnt the first for both it literally isnt a mathematical proof by definition, nor does it fit any of the definitions you just listed.

Multiple sources have been linked to you explaining what game solutions are in simple terms, and multiple mathematicians have verified your claims as pure delusion.

there is literally nobody else on the planet that shares your "interpretation" because your "interpretation" goes against the most basic mathematical tenet: every statement of fact must be proven directly from axioms. All you do is state general game knowledge rules of thumb as fact and act like its mathematical proof, and shortcut the entire proof process by claiming alternative possibilities as "unreasonable".

Tygxc will continue to dodge me beause he doesnt have any actual argument, and i dont play his games of distraction. instead of arguing, tygxc just downvotes posts he doesnt like.

He has to pretend that the mathematicians dont exist, that wikipedia is wrong, that the mathematicians that ive literally linked him to are wrong, that the papers he cites are wrong (yes, tygxc regularly links evidence that disproves what he is trying to claim), and more.

This topic degraded to some guerilla fights.

plus there's literally a couple mathematicians that have been on the thread and called him out on the very same fallacies that i do.

Hi SRD !
Its not A or B.
But your post is otherwise solid.
persons talking about 'solving chess' tend to assign or make their own definition of what that is - as they choose.
There are mutliple possibilities as to how such a definition is worded.
---------------------------------------------------
This is perhaps the most exacting one:
For any chess position with 32 pieces or less on the chessboard that includes whose move it is a 'solution of chess' could instantly tell you the following:
1) whether the position is legal or not.
2) whether the position is reachable legally or not.
3) whether there's a forced win for one side or not
4) for which side that forced win is available
To do all that properly - initial information has to be provided for in each position as follows in addition to whose move it is (doing so avoids 'game tree' permutations)
5) All information that could be relevant to defining the position as to possibilities of legal castling and legal en passant and application of three fold repetition and application of the 50 move rule.
The first two of those are relatively simple - the 'solution' covers both possibilities as to whether castling and en passant are available or not available whenever relevant. 
With the three-fold repetition rule it gets much tougher.
And with the 50 move rule tougher still.
The idea: to do so without any 'game tree analysis' or extensive information about sequences of previous moves.
But how do you do that - in defining any position to be input for its 'solution'?
Martin has mentioned about this - rightly - several times over the years.
------------------------
Another way to say this:
Easy to add attributes as to whose move it is and arbitrate both cases whether there was a relevant pawn move previously in relevant en passant situations or not. And the same regarding arbitrating both cases as to whether there was ever a relevant king or rook move in relevant castling situations.
-------------------------------------
But what are the attribute-possibilities regarding 3-fold repetition?
If there's already been a 2-fold repetition of a position previously occuring you could say:
'2-fold has already happened'. But of what position? How many positions already had 2-fold? What are they?
Uh oh.
---------------
but then with 50 moves ... information included as to 49 moves with no capture or pawn move - 48 moves - 47 moves ....
'Trouble'.
-----------------
And what if one side could force such draws in either case but doesn't want it and 'plays for the win'?
Getting messier.
Nothing to do with Mark Messier the hockey man.

Why hate to say it HR?
You're right.

But got to be careful per the nice moderator Wind suggesting here that its better to be polite enough.

The player in question drew, as White, in 15 moves, 20 moves, and in 22 moves.

I consider this evidence that the player was not trying to win these games - he was intentionally aiming to draw them.

He has top engines at his disposal - he would certainly be able to see that a draw was coming, soon out of the opening, based on the moves he chose. If he were actively trying to win, and were not content with drawing, then he would have sought deeper, longer-lasting complications, instead.

The fact that he didn't suggests that he was content with securing quick draws.

This is no mystery - players do it all the time in tournaments. You aim for draws in games in which you perceive draws are beneficial for you. You save your winning attempts for key games in which your chances may be highest.

But this approach isn't a reliable method for discerning the objective truth about chess (if that's what we're truly after). It skews the data toward draws, because draws are desirable outcomes due to the safety they provide (as you said yourself, "they do not want to lose").

@12192

"the player was not trying to win"
++ If IM Ros Padilla were playing to draw, then why did he play the novelty 6 c4 instead of following some trodden path towards the draw? I guess he judged the complications after 13 fxe5 in his favor, but then deeper analysis showed him wrong, so he chose to draw with 13 Bf1.

"Several of his moves lowered his centipawn evaluation closer to zero"
++ Such as? Bear in mind they calculate with powerful engines and 5 days/move.

"You aim for draws in games in which you perceive draws are beneficial for you."
++ ICCF has more draws than decisive games.
A draw is normal, a loss is very bad, and a win is very good.

"You save your winning attempts for key games in which your chances may be highest."
++ They play sharp stuff like Najdorf and Catalan, that is to win, not to draw.

Interesting enough Aleksandrov played 3...Bb4 against Haugen and 3...Nf6 against Terreaux.
So after study of Haugen and Terreaux' games he apparently judged 3...Bb4 gave him better chances to win against Haugen and 3...Nf6 gave him better chances to win against Terreaux.
This shows he played to win as black.
If he were after a draw, then he would have played the same, most safe move in both games.

"a reliable method for discerning the objective truth about chess" ++ I think it is.

"if that's what we're truly after" ++ Yes.

"It skews the data toward draws, because draws are desirable outcomes due to the safety"
++ The game itself skews the data towards draws: Chess is a draw.
The higher the level of the players and the longer the time control, the more draws.
ICCF (grand)master + engines and 5 days/move is the pinnacle.
The desirable outcome is a win, the normal, expected outcome is a draw, and the undesirable outcome is a loss.

"they do not want to lose" ++ 14 draws and 2 wins are enough to become World Champion.
The logical strategy is to avoid losses and to seize any opportunity to win.

I don't think someone can beat a computer. It can only happen if in his scripts, his data based on humans knowledges, haven't been enough to give itself the possibility to win and everybody knows that. A lot of A.I are just here to comfort the users/players who were paranoiac about letting a computer being more smart and powerful than a human, and sadly this is true, you cannot beat a computer, the physics and reality shows us that a human (even me, yeah, I'm human, what did you think ?) can't beat a computer, as fast, as it can go, as tough, he can put you down, in 10 secs. Bullets and Rapid mode, were for people who wanted to measure the capacity of a computer or of themselves, or to prevent a matchmaking against a cheater (that we are still wondering how and why, they are existing.) Have a nice day !

i dont give a sh_te

Here was the game in question (the 15-move draw):

Here is a proposed better try, after only a quick superficial analysis:

White has secured a passed pawn, and has pushed Black back on his heels. 37 moves in and White is still trying to claw his way toward a full point.

This was something I found after only a scant few minutes of analysis. Imagine what stronger, more testing tries a player could find, for White, with even longer time to analyze ...

Let's not kid ourselves by declaring that the 15-move draw that White chose was the best attempt at winning that he could possibly find ...

No - he was apparently content with a draw, and allowed it to happen quickly.

Similar cases could be made for other games in the tournament, as well. This goes back to my previous point - these draws, while of high quality, are not conclusive (or even reliable) evidence.

Some of the competitors are clearly not pushing chess to its limits. Rather, they appear to be bailing out with safe draws, once the opportunity arises ...

Idk. But if one day chess has been solved and white or black get a dominant sequence of moves that will dominate every move, fide will just ban the line and we will back to the normal chess

The question as to what an ICCF player is trying to do is more about what their engines are trying to do. Which is to maximise the imperfect evaluation of their engine. And that's going to mainly be the same engine - the current strongest, so the same imperfect evaluation.