Chess will never be solved, here's why

MARattigan.
Good poster. (usually).

Elroch did better.
Elroch expressed concern that the 'fraction' of total positions would be small or too small.
Which demonstrated some grasp of the idea unlike Martin.
its not a difficult idea.
I believe any player who knows how to checkmate with K+R versus K can quickly understand the ideas that develop from that basic situation. Which don't work with a bishop or knight.
Can understand.
I didn't say they 'will' or 'would'.

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It will be coming up in the post I saved a draft to but I'll do it now.

To make matters simplest I've assumed a DTM tablebase and a position where there is a unique winning line in the tablebase.

This position is winning for white in the Nalimov tablebase only with the move Ra8-h8 shown.

And if we add a bishop on say d8 the mate Ra8-h8 no longer works. Stalemate is not a consideration.

(Could you not have thought of that for yourself?)

Have you stopped answering my posts altogether?

You've made a whole series of posts saying I've missed the point of arbitrary (and sometimes unfathomable) changes to your initial ideas that you introduced only after I'd made the post you're complaining of and making absolutely no effort to rebuff my refutations.

You're not only resurrecting @tyxgc's discredited assertion that a large enough material difference can be assumed a win, you're also copying his policy of ignoring any rebuttal and simply reposting the same.

In #15704 I asked you in large yellow letters to justify your comment, "implication: In situation 3 (which Martin so far refuses to distinguish from situations 1 and 2" by pointing out where I'd done that. Instead you choose to post more of the same.

Can you now either apologise or post the quote I asked for?

I just thought of a hilarious position. Imagine whites rook in the corner... say a8. A lone black king on b6. A win for white of course no matter what. Then spawn two white knights on a7 and b8 that trap the rook... and black to move. LOL

wow

I will just keep meeting sunrises and sunsets waiting for the proper technology...

But that would be adding to a KRNvK position. @playerafar will probably just say you're missing the point because you've got far too many pieces altogether and you're only allowed to talk about K+R versus K. (You wouldn't want to score black marks in his bulletins, would you?)

Let's ask him and see.

@playerafar - this position is winning for White.

Would you say that this position with an added knight is therefore also winning for White?

This time - you didn't mess up on your first two diagrams.
But then you went off on your tangents.
You already know that Rook and King against King is a win unless its illegal or a stalemate..
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The point is that you've missed the points. Plural.
As to why - perhaps you don't know - otherwise you wouldn't have missed things that seem obvious. If you really did miss them that is.
I don't think Elroch missed it. Not 100% sure.
His objection was concerning too low a percentage of positions.
But its not low. And its gazillions of positions.
Because you add a piece to the side with the rook. And later - pieces.
The fact that it might get harder the more pieces that are added - in some positions is easily misinterpreted.
Because whatever the 'degree of difficulty' it can't match the waste of time of having to calculate through to checkmate every time and having to catalogue all the ways the side with the rook plus extra could mess up the win.
Game theory. Remember?
A stratetegy exists for white (or black) to force a win.
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What percentage of chessplayers would not know K+R versus K is a win - unless its a stalemate - or an illegal position?
A low percentage.
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I come to forums knowing this kind of thing happens on the internet.
I can and do simply choose 'to not be annoyed'.
And that includes regarding whatever Octo does now too.
What is really going on? Martin was obviously annoyed by Dubro/Avro.
Is Martin now annoyed that 'O' and C-Rat aren't here right now?
M should blame those guys for their behaviour. Not I.
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When does Martin either say that he's 'got it now' or stop trying to talk about Iceland in reaction to me talking about France? (figuratively speaking).
There's no 'suspense'.
Might not happen unless at least one member says things like:
'Yes its kind of obvious that King plus rook against King wins unless its an illegal position or its stalemate.
And its also obvious why many players resign that. Its an established win.
And its also obvious that if you add a bishop to the side with the rook then its still a win whenever its not stalemate.
And its obvious that a kind of progression can be built here which invokes logic instead of just computer-crunching.
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and then later:
And its also obvious that computers can be instructed to assign such positions as wins without crunching through to mate - provided there's no 'exotic positions' where the side with the rook is on move and plus that - is on move but can't avoid stalemating ...
And its obvious that the more pieces you add - the more of such positions might exist.
And its obvious that that's part of solving anyway!
And its obvious that if you also add a lot of pieces to the side that's down material and continues to be down material - then you're eventually going to have positions that have to be solved like other positions - (although more easily when its lopsided) - and that's part of solving too.
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> K+R

Does K stand for King, Knight or even Kueen (for those who play with high temperature)?

K stands for King and R stands for Rook and M wants to pick a fight for some reason?
Or he just doesn't get it. (seems unlikely. Its not deep.)
Why don't I just ignore him?
Well because he finally did post the K and R versus King diagram but then started on his tangents again.
He posted the diagram to start - but then undid that progress.
But - no big deal.
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@ emilio
I had a session with AI just now. Finding various ways to get Grok to extend its sessions.
I was specifically discussing white K+R versus black King - in situations where its white's move.
And how the solving supercomputer would be instructed to proceed with that (without crunching through to checkmate) as preparation to starting to add pieces to white.
And there was progress - but there's a semantics trap even that early.
If its white's move there - then stalemate can't happen.
The two are in conflict.
The 'tautology' would be 'if the game is already over then it can't be white's move. Its nobody's move.'
But the real point seems to be that in all diagrams of white K+R versus black King where its white's move - you don't even have to check for stalemate at all because there's no such thing.
Checkmate wouldn't exist at the time either - not if its white's move.
Nor would check.
But those last two have to be noted. As illegal.
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then we discussed 'mutual stalemate' and Grok was hopeless at that though.
but after the sessions I came up with this position on my own:

Its got a Rat in it though. Not quite what I was looking for.
White has five ways to reach this position in one move. All of them pawn moves.
But what was black's move before that?
Well that's okay. Black could have played Nf6 and white took with e5xf6. For example.
But what if it was Black reaching this position instead?
There doesn't appear to be a way he could have got there.
That's the Rat.
Yes - M probably knows about this and 'double stalemate' did come up here but I forgot the details.
The point is whether you can produce a mutual stalemate position where either player moved into it.

At least there is no more red on green

@playerafar

If you come up with an idea and somebody points out a flaw you can either rebut the reasoning or admit the flaw.

In the latter case if you think you can rescue the idea by adding caveats you can refloat the idea with the caveats.

And so on recursively.

This is preferable to starting a vendetta and accusing the person who pointed out the flaw of missing the caveats you come up with when you haven't even posted them. You don't save face, you just make yourself look vindictive. (Apart from which, do you not already have enough vendettas in progress carried over from other threads?)

And any chance of answering the yellow questions I posted recently (or simply admitting you're in error as I suggested above - you should have enough counterexamples by now)?

@playerafar

When does Martin either say that he's 'got it now' or stop trying to talk about Iceland in reaction to me talking about France? (figuratively speaking).

If you make an assertion about Iceland that I take issue with and instead of discussing the issue I've raised you start talking about France in response, then I stop talking about Iceland when you've adequately responded to the issue I raised about Iceland. (figuratively speaking).

(That doesn't preclude subsequently discussing France if I think you have said something interesting on the subject.)

I might say that I've got 'it' if you ever specify what you mean by 'it', but only, necessarily, if it has any relevance to anything we've been discussing (not just you).

Is that reasonable?

@playerafar

I notice you've removed some of the text from your post that I responded to in #15724.

If that was intended to signify that you're withdrawing the claims/demands in the deleted sections, I should point out that the thread normally works forward rather than backwards and a later retraction would be preferable. This would avoid people needing to scan back through the thread to notice the change and make clear your intention, if indeed your intention was as I have surmised.

Simply deleting the text leaves your intention unclear.

I haven't checked any other of your related posts for additions or deletions (and may not have copies of the text to compare) so perhaps you could indicate which of your posts you have changed and what the changes were.

As a general rule you shouldn't make changes to posts people have already responded to or referenced or which materially affect any discussions underway, rather put your changes in new posts.

@MARattigan
Your posting diagrams of drawn positions does not demonstrate any 'flaw'.
The more you post such diagrams the more appropriate it is for me to ignore them.
As to what's really going on it appears you're annoyed about something that has little or nothing to do with the ideas I'm suggesting.
And little or nothing to do with me.
Perhaps its people using AI. It annoys you. You let that happen.
Which could mean you have much annoyance about that in front of you.
Year in year out.
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Rook and King against King is one example among several of an idea that you want to build a federal case against.
I could have started with King plus two bishops against lone King instead.
Or King and Queen versus lone King. Or King and pawn against lone King.
I started with King plus rook against lone King as 'example' because its the best example to begin with.
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From me:
"What percentage of chessplayers would not know K+R versus K is a win - unless its a stalemate - or an illegal position?
A low percentage."
And then reply from MARattigan
"Wow, I'd never have guessed that."
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That's right. You'd never have guessed because you already knew and have been knowing that.
Now if you can hold that thought - you can progress from there -
and then you won't need to talk about things like the Blathy diagram ...
(you may as well have posted the opening position and said 'see? this isn't K+R versus K.)
That's right. It isn't. So what?
But - you can keep on posting what you post.
As long as it doesn't break the rules of the website - or not too blatantly - then chess.com will not interfere with you doing so.

Now - the bigger picture.
Three years of this forum talking about how and why chess will not be solved with current technology. That's pretty much beat to death.
But - other conversations have been happening here too.
About things peripheral or related to the forum subject or reinterpretations of it.
Including alternatives to collisions of computer projects with the Shannon number (10^120) and John Tromp's number (4.8 x 10^44). (which ignores the 75 move rule but who's worried?)
Those numbers prevail.
Supercomputers and brute-force algorithms and the like going into battle against those numbers - are going to continue to lose.
The tablebase projects people know that.
But they have other reasons for doing those projects.
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With checkers - something different was tried.
An alternative to computer-crunching of all checkers positions.
And the computers won.
Because they went at an 'alternative solution' to solving checkers.
Instead of trying to crunch every possible position.
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We're allowed here to talk about 'alternative approaches' to solving chess too.
Including the use of logic.
Start with positions of lopsided material advantage against a lone King ...
then add more material to the winning side. Its still a win except for when its stalemate.
Do you want the lone King to be able to checkmate? To check?
But later on- add some material to the lone king too.
But that's later on. In other words remember the proverb 'don't do cart before the horse'
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I don't have to defend starting with lone king either.
In fact I don't have to defend any of this. I could but don't intend to.
(Somebody not getting those points - because of imagining otherwise and 'acting out' on same.)
(and yes we're allowed to evolve the way something is posted about too)
Did somebody have a stroke and imagine that's not the case?

I note not a single answer to any questions, nor any admission that both (or even either) of the ideas you posted are invalid.

Bit like @tygxc really, except @tygxc came up with one of your ideas before you did.

Did you get round to reading #15719? (You certainly didn't get round to answering it.)

If ChatGPT told you that, I already told you - stop running to ChatGPT, it's bad for your brain.