Chess will never be solved, here's why

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.

i have a question...is it better to act 1st or 2nd ? only cuz they say in lotsa games its better to act 2nd cuz one has more information. iows does black have the slight edge ?...or white here ?

This topic degraded to some guerilla fights.

and ur just realizing that now ?

thats what im thinking too. not sure abt black to win. but black for the edge ?

That already exists. Stockfish can provide you a line that you can follow against any player in the world and win. Carlsen or Nakamura, doesn't matter. Why would it be any different if the line is a forced win when nobody will respond with the best play anyway. Do it before fide figures it out.

tygxc why do you continue to ignore the fact that iccf games have literally nothing to do with solving chess?

you have no proof of any of their games having any property beyond them drawing against eachother. anyone can draw against eachother, it proves nothing.

I also love how you cant even defend the tangent despite it being fundamentally off topic and fallacious.

just because someone goes for a novel line at the start doesnt mean they arent playing it safe.

theres no proof against it, despite tygxc's coping.

tygxc trying to assert something as fact because he says so.
That hasn't been addressed much here.
Not specifically.
tygxc trying for a phony authority including with false information from him.
Connects to Martin's joke about tygxc having a red telephone.
Its like a climate science denier trying to assert false information that the oceans are getting shallower instead of the actual reality of ocean water levels increasing with such deniers 'premise' being that he or she or their Guru says so.

@12195

6 Nec3 has been tried before. 6 c4 is a novelty aiming to improve on it.
In your line black should play 9...b5:

"the best attempt at winning" ++ He should probably play 2 Nf3 or 2 c3. That draws too.

"he was apparently content with a draw" ++ I disagree, if he wanted to draw, then he could have followed the above game. With his novelty 6 c4 he aimed to win, but the intended 13 fxe5 on deeper analysis turned out not as favorable as he thought, so he drew with 13 Bf1.

"Similar cases could be made for other games" ++ Such as?

"these draws, while of high quality, are not conclusive (or even reliable) evidence" ++ They are.

"Some of the competitors are clearly not pushing chess to its limits"
++ They are. Even so, there are 17 competitors. Which ones are not pushing?

"they appear to be bailing out with safe draws"
++ They do not play Catalan, Najdorf, French for safety or to draw.
They try to win, but they cannot because Chess is a draw if played prefectly.
They do not play novelties to draw as in predecessor games, but to try to win.

Its not established that a perfect game of chess has ever been played.
Reason - chess is not solved.
Nor has it ever been established that a perfect game would end in a draw.
Nobody knows.
That's something that many don't want to accept.
Some things will never be known.
Like whether the universe is finite or infinite.

@12210

"a perfect game of chess" ++ Here are 114 perfect games.
"chess is not solved" ++ It is being weakly solved.
"a perfect game would end in a draw" ++ It does, see 114 examples.
"Nobody knows." ++ All good players know.
"whether the universe is finite or infinite"
++ Finite, radius 13.772 ± 0.059 billion light years as measured by WMAP

Please stop making a fool of yourself.

what next tygxc, are you going to claim that the earth is flat, and that all scientists know it?