Chess will never be solved, here's why

     Whether or not one person is better at guessing than another has no bearing on any particular situation. Even though person A will guess more correctly than person B 80% of the time person B's guess WILL BE more correct once in five tries. Meticulously examined proofs are ALWAYS better than well-informed guesses. 

     Although one's opinions may be sufficient in their own mind, that has no relevance to actual results.

Absolutely right. It's just getting tedious now there are obviously two crackpots to negotiate with.

Yes.  Good post.

Today I read a Reddit article (I usually avoid Reddit and 'Quora' and the almost always inferior/useless 'Stack Overflow' websites)  ....
because they don't quickly provide the information sought ....
but the article concerned 'Gestalt' as it pertains to chess. 
So titled players including GM's were talking there about how they look at positions and think about chess ...  and there it was again ...  'pattern recognition' 
Titled players push that all the time ...
so I then posted to that effect - how such 'pattern recognition' nor 'calculations' could Not possibly help anybody with spotting the first solution move of the tactics problem I was posting in.  (71% of the attempts failing - not surprising - since if the option isn't both spotted nor examined then that's it ...  no 'Solved')
'Observation' was key ...  very distinct from 'calculation'
happens constantly in tactics puzzles.  And in games too.
'Doctrine' interfering with effective chess education.
Much of the time GM's give good chess advice - but the 'doctrine' approach is like with science ...
much better are the logic and evidence approaches to the game.
Even a 'history' approach to math and science and chess too - would be better than a 'doctrine' approach.  

Once you reach the SOLVED! stage you will hear a strange electronic piece of music followed by a high pitched japanese geisha voice: "Congratulations! You just completed Chess level 1 and may now proceed to level 2 of 32767 remaining levels. Good luck!"

And:  Introduction to three-dimensional chess.  

Makes me wonder what the weather conditions and incline were like on your way to school as a child. Especially compared to the way home from school. 

I can't recall a pattern. I went to school in the two Northern counties of England, both about 40 miles from the Scottish border. When I was younger, it was near the West coast. That would have been wetter. After 14 years old, not too far from the East coast. Similar latitudes but the latter probably averaged 5 degrees colder although quite a bit drier. When I was younger, it was about two and a half miles. Too far to walk so I caught a bus or cycled. I often walked back and that was mainly up quite a steep hill. I mainly walked to the second school and that was across a wide, river valley, so each walk started off downhill and ended uphill.

Why do you ask?

It wasn't asked.
It was 'make me wonder' in that post.

Funny?  a gigantic answer was forthcoming - supposedly with a reason ...

We have to establish exactly what "weakly solved" means, as @Elroch pointed out. According to Allis, a game is weakly solved if, for the initial position(s), the game-theoretic value has been determined and a strategy has been determined to obtain at least the game-theoretic value, for both players. "Determined" means not by guessing, using our experience of the game. We don't know which is this game-theoretic value in chess, nor the perfect strategy. The fact that White has an expected score sligthly higher than 0.5 does not prove that Black can only draw, with perfect play. To understand how hazardous this kind of assumption is, think about how many positions we have seen, where one colour is a rook or a queen down: more than 95% of the times, the position is lost for that colour, but we know that there exist positions where a tactical combination, or a particular positional situation, subverts the expected result. Well, one of those very positions could be the initial one. But we would not see that, because of our (and engines) limited calculation ability. So there might exist a line that, unexpectedly, leads to a win for Black and we cannot rule out this possibility, cutting down the exploration of "inferior" openings for Black, otherwise the solution is weak, but in another sense.

The amount of talk on that specific subject is just ridiculous

It might just be an American experience. Sometimes people recall their earlier days as being more challenging than what people experience today.

So often people will reflect on walking to school (not having the luxury of a school bus or even motorized vehicles). And the weather? It was always in deep snow, even when it was warm out. And uphill too. Both ways. 

There aren't going to be any situations, arising from the opeining moves, where a surprising and forced destabilisation occurs in favour of either side, because every indication is that from the opening moves, white's slight superiority evens out. With every pair of moves, it becomes less.

It is possible to argue that it hasn't been proven. However, no method to prove it exists or is likely to exist, possibly forever if insufficient resources are diverted from simply humanity trying to survive. Therefore, in reality it is meaningless to assert that black might win or white might win. It's a bit difficult to determine whether one eventuality is more ridiculous than the other, which is also ridiculous. There is a difference between deductive proof and inference and the necessary premises for deductive proof do not exist. Neither do the tools to obtain them.

<<So there might exist a line that, unexpectedly, leads to a win for Black and we cannot rule out this possibility, cutting down the exploration of "inferior" positions, otherwise the solution is "weak", but in another sense.>>

Earlier I used a somewhat similar argument, with the same wording. I was criticised for it. Apparently, one has to ask permission, before using words in different senses.

The eye is immediately drawn to Nh5

"So there might exist a line that, unexpectedly, leads to a win for Black and we cannot rule out this possibility"
correct - although the 'we' there is inappropriate ... better would have been 'cannot be objectively ruled out' 
plus - the other 'material' surrounding the key and quoted phrase is superfluous.

If none knows how to win the game, the game will end in a 0.5 on average, with a bonus for White because he moves first. That does not mean that we know the theoretical value of the game, and that's why we cannot cut down entire openings to weakly solve chess. That's the point.

@Optimissed: I have edited the last part of post #1434

playerafar's excellent puzzle disappeared. I was just checking Nh5 QxB NxB+ gf Rg1+, which leaves black only one square for the king and white to move, before trying it out.

As for the chess problem I had in mind - the moves didn't copy properly.
And whoever can always just quickly put it in an engine and claim 'the eye'.  Or has seen it before.  
I'll find another example.

I previously tried to explain to the assembled multitudes that there's no practical difference between weakly solving and strongly solving, in that in the assessment of games, it's necessary to assess many games that contain outright blunders in order to discover surprising moves that may win. The difference only exists in hindsight and, since chess is NOT solved, no hindsight exists. Therefore it isn't helpful to dicuss it in those terms. Absolutely no-one here understood me.

Somebody could stumble on the win by accident.
But I don't want to split hairs.
Anyway - the whole business of solving can be better discussed - with how it pertains not only to accuracy - but to invalid dismissals -
and how 'gestalt' enters the picture too.  Or Is the picture.