Chess will never be solved, here's why

I've had my shots and never had Covid at all.

You're very good at making statements about everyone based on nothing but your unfeasibly large IQ.

Obviously that is an outstanding contribution to the discussion @Optimissed. Well done.

@MARattigan
(O is inept about paradox in IQ and credentials and money and power - and most of everything he says is a reverse of the realities)
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But regarding our recent discussion between you and I about what computer projects should could or would skip:
A little joke is in order:
Francois Philidor (the Isaac Newton of chess?) is showing a beginner how to mate a lone king with rook and king.
The beginner catches on fast. Masters it. Philidor is pleased. Congratulates his student.
But then the student asks:
"But monsieur ... what if the winning side had three rooks instead of just one?"
Philidor tries to conceal his frown and then grin. Keeps a poker face.
Wonders to himself 'if he was going to ask about that - why didn't he ask about two rooks first? instead of three - and should I mention?'
Decides no.
Philidor: 'Lets have some wine first. You like Beujolais?'
After lots of wine 'Phil' says: 'We'll look at 4 rooks first.'

You didn't prove anything Dubro.
I'm predicting that O will be 'stroking' you and you'll keep falling for it and therefore keep insulting Elroch and MARattigan.
Something like what C-Rat (ibrust) kept doing - and got muted for.
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time to see what Grok says about 'skipping superflous positions' in chess-solving.

@Dubrovnik-1950, you are exhibiting obsessive repetitious behaviour. I have to point out it gives the impression of dull-wittedness.

Of course, the combination of arrogance and apparent lack of understanding of pretty much any intelligent post (based on the responses) reinforces this impression.

We're aware that you can get it wrong without Grok's help. You've fully demonstrated that.

You might find getting it wrong with Grok more fun, but are you aware that the rest of us don't find you getting it wrong with Grok more fun? Some of us find it very tedious in fact.

Firstly, note that personal abuse is against chess.com rules. It's about time to start reporting every instance of this that comes from you. Also any more spamming.

Secondly, I am going to explain this very slowly and carefully, since it is directed at you rather than someone with strong relevant skills.

The quote you posted from @tygxc exemplifies his misuse of the word "solve" exactly as I explained. He described a procedure in other posts which involved a combination of grandmaster judgement and non-comprehensive engine analysis to get confident estimates of the true evaluation of reasonable opening lines, like a souped up version of the way GMs might analyse a variation in their preparation. This is not solving chess, but it is what he calls solving chess. Obviously a few current machines for 5 years would be woefully inadequate to really solve chess.

I suspect that even with an explanation you won't understand that and will be away with the fairies again.

Dubro is free from the error of 'trying to win a popularity contest' ...
but not free of the error of 'deliberately trying to win an unpopularity contest'
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Dubro you can win that second one by accident you know. Maybe.

In your dreams.

@playerafar mentioned excluding all bishops and immediate stalemates. This should be a better example at -14.4

So, @playerafar, what is your algorithm for disposing of that one?

Looks like someone is taking a vacation, quite a few pages worth.

Not unexpected. I think it's @Grok3.

No. I wouldn't agree.

Consider the following two player game.

At the start of the game the index is set to 3.

White moves first and chooses a positive natural number.

If in a set prearranged time Black can find another positive natural number such that when the two numbers are raised to the index and added the result is some other natural number raised to the same index he wins.

Otherwise the index is increased by 1 and Black moves next with the roles reversed.

Thereafter the players alternate moves, the index increasing by 1 each time.

It was suspected for a long time that the game was drawn and some results were established such as, like chess, the game could not be won on the first move. But relatively recently the game was completely solved as drawn.

Note that the game tree, game states and branching factor are all infinite.

But the solution was not found by a BFI routine run on a computer. It was, in fact, a fundamentally different strategy.

I think if chess is ever solved the same will probably be true.

Edit: Now I think about it, it is trivial to prove the game I outlined is drawn, but still by a fundamentally different strategy.

came to this thread cuz i got a notif that opti got muted again, got jumpscared when i saw yall talking about tygxc lol.

but i do want to correct this, @tygxc's claim of the 5 year 'solution' is actually explicitly based on that method/solution for checkers. Yall mightve forgotten and have accidentally sanewashed him, but no, that was literally what tygxc was claiming. he just straight up assumed that not only was the chess engine involved going to be perfect, but that it would be perfect with only 1 node of computational power allocated per position.

tygxc never said ' that it would be possible by five years of effort to become more convinced about the answer we already believe, without getting anywhere near a true solution. He obfuscated this by obstinately misusing the term "solve"'

tygxc genuinely claimed that his methods (like discarding positions without actually looking at them, having enough strong engines reaching draws) were a rigorous logical proof.

ex: in response to "It's safe to say chess still can't be rigorously solved."
++ No, on the contrary it is safe to say chess can be rigourously weakly solved.The 17 ICCF WC Finalist and their servers are doing it now.110 games out of 110 that redundantly link the initial position in average 39 moves to certain draws. - Tygxc.

Yes. It's subtle difference.

@tygxc claimed that his proposed "solution" would complete in the foreseeable future and he also claimed that his proposed "solution" was along the lines of the checkers solution. Both were false. My meaning was that he had never claimed that a solution that was actually along the lines of the checkers solution would complete in the foreseeable future (only his own, which was not).

@MARattigan - I don't think you got the points I made.
For one - many bishops moving on the same color squares - not 'all bishops'.
For two - that isn't talking about 'won' positions.
For three - I didn't say 'all bishops'.
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I haven't taken the time yet to read over all recent posts by worthy posters such as yourself Martin and Elroch and Dio.
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But I did have some conversation with Grok just now about 'alternative solutions of chess'.
Various points were covered. Thousands of words 
Obviously I'm not going to do a 'Dubro' and kneejerk the entire conversations with Grok.
But there are salient points.
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First I had to get the concept across to Grok about tablebase endgame projects that concentrate on adding to won positions already established by Syzygy ...
then I had to get it to understand that this would not be done by retrograde move additions.
And I added that that would be hopeless in the way 'game tree' from the front already is.
No gametree analysis.
Not necessary. Once a position is established as a win because of lopsided material advantage - and you add any piece to the winning side - you only have to do another stalemate check and perhaps a couple of other relatively very minor checks like making sure an addition of a piece doesn't make winning impossible.
Which is extremely unlikely against lone king.
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then I started asking questions about a ratio of lopsided material wins to minimal wins (not book wins) ... and has anything been published about this?
Grok and I agreed that chessplayers and mathematicians would have considered such things both before and after the development of computers - and Grok mentioned about 'alternative solvings' of chess ... And I had to make it clear to Grok I was asking about published theories not 'published alternative solvings' whic hof course don't exist anyway.
As in not yet.
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Grok mentioned Moore's law and 'Haworth's law' (which isn't a law)
The point is there's apparently been no formal work done on computer projects to solve positions by adding material to won positions that are wins because of lopsided material advantage. Nor has there been formal published theory on that either.
As in - not anything that Grok found when I asked it.
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Grok liked the idea - and gushed. But it often does. The idea is to ignore that.
Grok - like Chatgpt and Copilot is built with an idea that it must err on the opposite side of cricizing its users.

Hi MEGA 
you got here just in time to miss Dubrovnik getting muted for the kind of thing that Opto has been doing for years.
And 'crazyrat' (who has two C-Rat accounts and is also an ibrust account and does O-worship) getting muted although he's back from that mute.
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Conjecture about the number and ratio of lopsided material wins within John Tromp's number.
A legitimate way to cut it down.
John Tromp's number is a big cutdown from 13^64 and from the even bigger Shannon number.
But part of future solving might involve a process of further legitimate cutdowns.

I think maybe you're missing the point.

You're proposing not to investigate won positions with a large discrepency in material on the grounds that they're won. The gaping flaw is - how do you know they're won without first solving?

Of course I can give you lots of examples of positions with large discrepency in material that are won and fit in with your "For two", but the whole point of the example is that it isn't a win.

And the Bláthy example has only one bishop.

What algorithm would you propose to avoid assigning a value of winning to general positions with large discrepency in material that are not winning. How are you going to recognise the exceptions? Stockfish won't reliably tell you.

MAR - you're still missing the main points.
Are you suggesting that doing a stalemate check is harder than solving a position?
Your Blathy example is of something not applying to my suggestion.
Why would you want to include positions that add to a-apawn endgame draws?
Martin's a good man though. (tempted to make a pun based on Swiss Family Robinson and Swisss Army knife but that got cancelled before Season 1.)
Yes - Martin's a good man. I do mean that.
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Martin did you see my Philidor joke?
Lets try an even shorter version of it.
GM instructs E player how to checkmate with K+R versus K ...
'E' masters it fast - but then asks 'what about three rooks'?