Chess will never be solved, here's why

Martin - politely and in a friendly way - you seem to be ignoring castling.
People don't have to have math and science credentials to know that castling is basic to the game.

No I'm not. Nor am I ignoring 12 man or 32 man positions.

I'm not claiming that any of the tablebases so far is either a weak or a strong solution of either basic rules or competition rules chess, I'm talking only about whether they are weak or strong solutions of the positions they address.

Further tablebases can in principle, and in some cases in practice, be produced to cover both positions with more men and positions with castling rights and even positions with repetitions under art 9.2.3 under competition rules (though not in practice in that case, I would say).

Martin you once asked me about what terms I suggest.
Better might be terms like 'purely' and 'imperfectly'.
Generic terms.
Yes we could table tennis about even the word 'solved' and what that does or should mean.
That table tennis would go nowhere.
To me - 'solved' implies strength. Not 'weak'.
Is it 'about me' though? I say no.
Its about presenting things generically.
I don't say I have all the answers.
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Idea: how difficult would it be to make an estimate of the total number of checkmate positions in chess?
Would that number be much less than the 4 x 10^44 number?
Yes. But by how much?
If that number is determined - then the number of mate in one positions would soon be known too.
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Why do I mention?
Because various members were talking about the significance of positions being 'mate in x or less moves available'.
As defining a win.
You could also define by 'mate in minimum x moves even with helpmate moves'
Point: Maybe that's a better angle than tablebasing.
Although its not completely exclusive to tablebasing.

Martin you once asked me about what terms I suggest.Better might be terms like 'purely' and 'imperfectly'.Generic terms.Yes we could table tennis about even the word 'solved' and what that does or should mean.That table tennis would go nowhere.To me - 'solved' implies strength. Not 'weak'.

Why invent your own terms when people investigating the topic have already produced standard terms. Nobody is going to understand what you're talking about. How long do you want the thread to last?

"I'm not claiming that any of the tablebases so far is either a waek or a strong solution of either basic rules or competition rules chess,"
Good for you Martin.
And I'm suggesting that neither 'strong' nor 'weak' are good terms for classifying solutions.
How did 'weak' ever get in there?
Probably because 'strong' got in first and then 'weak' got in as its opposite.
The dubious nature of that terminology increases when 'ultra-weakly' then gets in there too.
Then it might occur to some that the set of different 'degrees' of thoroughness of solving might begin to become a big set.
That such 'degree of solving' is beginning to look scalar instead of binary.

The thread has lasted through all kinds of things.
At least two have tried hard to make it about them.
One of them - not so badly.
He's still here. He's not going away.
I haven't 'invented' anything. I have no red telephone.
People get to express themselves here.
You don't have to do what I'm suggesting Martin.
You know that.
You also know that I'm maintaining that a 'solution' that doesn't include castling can never be a 'strong' solution. And then 'weak' ceases to be valid too.
Its not meant to be 'annoying' but if you insist on being annoyed you know I can't stop you from being annoyed.

"You also know that I'm maintaining that a 'solution' that doesn't include castling can never be a 'strong' solution. And then 'weak' ceases to be valid too."
'Nobody' is going to understand that?
From Dio earlier:
"Weak and strong do not apply so let's not muddy up that terminology any more than Tygxc et al already muck them up. Tablebases that skip castling and en passant are incomplete"
Incomplete. Another better word.
Dio also 'informed' about gallium arsenide.
And yes Elroch had already begun to say (I think) that Moore's Law wasn't really continuing to hold anyway.
One of my aims: interfere with 'nodes per second'.

Can you tell me this forum is guerilla warfare?

What are we supposed to be talking again because in these late pages I rarely see anything related to the topic

There's different 'degrees of disagreement'.
Many 'like a good argument'.
If its too tame doesn't work. If its too wild doesn't work.

This is straight of guerilla warfare right now

Great post right through!
"and it went under while waiting for Moore's Law to flatten out for silicon"
"I suspect once we hit about 10-12 pieces, there will be a call to go back and start parallel efforts to catch up and complete the tablebases."
Me too. But I suspect I won't live to see that.
But there might be alternative projects too.
Tablebases generating checkmate positions (mate in zero) for Any legal number of pieces on board including 32.
A beginning of a project to produce an 'imperfect solution' of chess.

A solution that doesn't include castling can be neither a weak or a strong solution of either basic or competition rules chess because the starting position includes castling rights. You don't need to invent your own terms to state that. It follows directly from the jargon.

A solution that doesn't include castling can perfectly well be a weak or strong solution of a position in either version of chess that includes no castling rights.

Whether it is or not is a fact that follows directly from the definitions, not a subjective feeling that the words "weak" and "strong" may induce in different contributors.

(As for, "And then 'weak' ceases to be valid too", I don't understand it. Maybe somebody does.)

The argument here about the 'jargon' terms seems to be one where some may have forgotten what exactly they were arguing about

"A solution that doesn't include castling can perfectly well be a weak or strong solution of a position in either version of chess that includes no castling rights."
One can wade throught that?
'Version of chess'.
'Perfectly'.
Well at least you used 'perfectly'.
Should we be doing versions of chess that don't include other moves too and present them as 'perfectly strong'?
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If 'strong' is invalid - and it Definitely looks invalid without castling - then 'weak' as 'opposite of strong' gets extra-invalid.
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But Dio (I'm confident I've got this right but not certain) already indicated that tablebases that don't include en passant and castling are 'incomplete'.
And also that the tablebases so far should soon be revised and properly completed.
Incomplete. Good word.

Having already pointed out that the Syzygy tablebases incorporate the en passant rule throughout, it is worth adding a point about the omission of castling rights. Fortunately, not only is this (relatively) computationally cheap to include, it can be efficiently added afterwards. The easiest way is to add a new tablebase file for each relevant class of material - i.e. at least one side has at least one rook - but to only include positions where at least one of the sides has castling rights (a very major restriction of the locations of the pieces, making it more like the size of a tablebase with 2 fewer pieces).

Note that all of these classes of positions are "upstream" of the ones that already exist, in that you can get to an old file (specific material, no castling rights) from one of the new files (specific material, with some castling rights) by a legal move (one that leaves the position with no remaining castling rights) but not in the other direction (you can never gain castling rights by a legal move - they are there even when there are pieces blocking them at present).

The computational cost of these additional files is small compared to the rest - a king has to be on a specific one of 64 squares and a rook has to be in one of two squares, so there are thousands of times fewer positions than for the same material without castling rights. There are also no files for positions without rooks, of course.

While the files would be generated separately, it would be possible (but unnecessary) to merge them with the file with the same material without any castling rights, with a technical change to the code for how the file is used. This would mean fewer files and less switching between them.

So, now you know what you need to do, @playerafar! You can make Syzygy "strong".

Elroch remember what you kept/keep saying to tygxc about probability and completeness and rigor. An idea. To remember.
I'm reminding you that the tablebases so far are incomplete.
No matter how much you repeat indications of 'that can be fixed easily'.
Get it yet?
No? How long before that is 'solved'?

Your comments have been a bit odd recently.

The situation has changed.

It was badly phrased. It should have read.

A solution that doesn't include castling can perfectly well be a weak or strong solution of a position that includes no castling rights in either version of chess.

Hopefully you can understand that.

"'Perfectly'." as in the well known phrase, "perfectly well" - not intended to have any reference to perfect play.

"Should we be doing versions of chess that don't include other moves too and present them as 'perfectly strong'?"

No, that would probably be too far off topic.