Chess will never be solved, here's why

@Elroch
What I'm showing to you is that people on the same general side of an issue can disagree. Openly.
We don't have to do things like Washi and T-guy do them.
'Its our team against your team. Our city will kick your city's A-- !'
I say we do better than that. We do.
Its a fact.
Defining what we disagree on:
Better ways to go at the subject.

Returning to the topic of using computation efficiently, a clever thing would be to prioritise those tablebases that are more likely to turn up AND where positions are not trivial. The lopsided tablebases are only really of theoretical interest, because how far it is to mate doesn't matter much when you have a couple of extra pieces - it's just a position where the result is (with high confidence) known. This could be a big deal for practical application - I think generating a 9 piece tablebase of classes of positions that are likely to not have clear evaluations could be as cheap as generating the whole 8 piece tablebase.

As I edited my earlier comment after @playerafar responded to the one line version, here is the rest of it:

Let me point out that a tablebase is fundamentally just a class of positions that are strongly solved. There is nothing special about the number of pieces - this is just a way of dividing up the set of all positions. So what the current Syzygy tablebase does is provide a set of 38,176,306,877,748,245 positions that are strongly solved, so that if they happen to appear in the analysis tree their value is known.

What you (@playerafar) are saying is that you are radically unhappy that this is not a slightly larger class of positions (well under 0.1% bigger). I would prefer that it was too, but it really isn't a big deal. ALMOST ALL chess positions are NOT included in the tablebase and for practical purposes what matters is what turns up.

You can be sure that a few positions with more pieces and no castling rights would be more useful than the ones with fewer pieces and castling rights, because castling rights are only rarely there in the ending. Even where they do remain, the engine will get information from the tablebase for every line where castling rights are lost later, exponentially reducing the analysis needed.

So it's not a high priority. I have no doubt that Ronald de Man and Bojun Guo spotted this years ago when they made their design decisions.

Sometimes.

Sometimes it's fundamentally just a class of positions that are weakly solved.

You conceded that your initial attempt was badly phrased.
Good. Progress.
But your 2nd prototype - I don't think its a big improvement.
And I have no red telephone.
You probably won't try this ...
but try to word it without 'weak' or 'strong' because 'version of chess' is already 'weak'. Very.
Very weak.
But - put in a nice way. Refers to the post. Not the member.
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What would actually be 'strong'?
32 piece tablebase including all possible castling situations and en passants and solving all possible ensuing positions including noting all winning positions with 'checkmate in x moves and precisely the value of x in each case'.
That would be strong. Even if it 'skips' 3fold and the 50 move rules.
Why would it be strong? Because it encompasses the moves of the pieces.
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Are there ways it could be even stronger?
Yes - and not just those two extra rules.
A stronger solution would also indicate if there's a forced stalemate and minimum number of moves to that.
Minimum number of moves to a forced draw because of insufficient material.
There could even be embellishments:
Like - minimum number of moves to mate if helpmates are factored in too. 
And helpdraws.
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Note that if there's a forced checkmate in a minimum number of moves - that minimum could be lower if there's 'help'. Happens constantly in games.

'What you (@playerafar) are saying is that you are radically unhappy that this is not a slightly larger class of positions'
Wrong. Plus personal.
But I forgive you for both @Elroch
I always do.

@MARattigan, only for the repetition rule, which is a practical convenience for human chess (basically saying "if you faff around too much while looking for the way to win, the opponent can claim a draw" )

Some persons might not realize that the topic is also relevant to how people go at chess.
However distant and fragile the linkage might be.

@Elroch.

Of course. The same applies to the 50 move rule. But you wouldn't even have Syzygy tablebases if it weren't for the latter.

Fact remains, if you're going to be accurate the Syzygy tables give only a weak solution of the positions they address under competition rules. (It's all that's needed anyway, so I don't understand why you keep insisting on "strong solution".)

I am most interested in basic rules chess, the purest ruleset (infinite games are no concern to a tablebase). A motivation is that it is the least hard to solve, and there is no issue of not being a strong solution.

I believe DTZ extends this to the 50 move rule and similar. i.e. it provides a strong solution for chess with such a rule and no repetition rule. Why would this not be so?

[Actually, there is a tricky issue. If you have a position which zeros within 50 moves but which goes to a position that is a mate in 70 with DTZ>50, does Syzygy give good advice? I would imagine so, because practical application would have been a concern. Even if it did not, it might be possible to explore the tablebase to try to find a way to mate while avoiding the 50 move rule, even if this wasn't superficially visible. I am a bit hazy about this. Basic rules are better! ]

Which I just was. With no effort.
Right before your 'suggestion'.

@Elroch
try to remember what you keep saying to tygxc about 'exact'.
And to apply it in this context too.
That's an idea not a suggestion.

I meant positive and constructive about the technical issues. My posts aim to be exact. With all due respect, your comments have not found a way in which they were not (though @MARattigan has a claim to having done so!)

So long as the position has no repeats under 9.2.3, yes it does. The stats are not ideal though.

It will tell you the position is a "frustrated" win (draw) and give you moves that result in a win under basic rules.

Which I am.
Plus very direct.
You and Martin and others will never 'break' tygxc's illogic but you do a good job of exposing it. Constantly.
As for me are you ever going to break my Logic of telling you that any solution that omits castling will never be 'strong'?
@Elroch - idea try to be constructive and positive about both the technical and the interpersonal issues too.
idea supplemental: You usually are. So don't make an exception here.

HI

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It really is an irrelevant thing. Even if a computer can learn to win every game with white there would be so many lines to understand nobody would be able to play them all. The great thing is that the game is that complicated so it can go on being played forever competitively by humans.

Concerning exactness, I have to report that I accidentally posted the number of positions in the (as yet incomplete) 8 piece Syzygy tablebase. The number in the 7 piece Syzygy tablebase is 423,836,835,667,331.