Chess will never be solved, here's why

Championship post!
I like that one!

That was a given since the get-go. Chess will not be solved in our lifetimes, or our grandchildren's lifetimes, etc. If one understands the 10^44.5 (10^46.7 when this thread first started) number and current tablebase progress...

The arguments that we might stumble upon a forcing line or figure out an algorithm out of the blue are not reasonable as things sit now. I could posit that a second big bang will start in the Milky Way next year, wiping us all out in short order, and it cannot be disproven, but there's also zero point in having any discussion about it. Tic Tac Toe can be solved without using brute force...Chess, not so much.

(That was a general response and not aimed at Mpaetz...)

A big Bang could start just outside this one.
I would say Tic Tac Toe is already 'solved'.
But checkers is a better talking point perhaps.
Is there 'luck' in checkers?
If its already 'solved' then could there be?
Not for computers with all possible lines quickly available to them ...
Unless - the computers were each given an extremely short time on the clocks.
So one computer gets 'lucky' because the other computer chose a line where the other computer was better prepared to move faster and won on the clock.

A new big bang would not have to start outside the existing one, it would just be a lot more polite if it did.

Yes, everybody should know that Tic Tac Toe is solved. Personally, I solved it in 4th grade...most people can solve it without help given a little time and thought. Saying "Tic Tac Toe can be solved without using the brute force" is not the same as saying "Tic Tac Toe is not solved yet".

There's no luck in checkers, and yes, it's a good example since it is weakly solved.

Except that there are a single or small set of moves that are objectively "best" in each position, so the subjective is not really meaningful.

That does require a choice of definition of "best". "Practical best" is context dependent and not the same as game theoretic best. A definition would be "the move that provides the greatest expected score, given a stochastic model of the opponent".

In the context of solving chess, though, the whole "play what your opponent has the most trouble with" falls away. There's only "holds the win" or "holds the draw". I guess I should qualify even if I'm in the solving chess thread, to be clear.

Yes, game theoretic definitions are the appropriate ones for "solving chess".

The thing is, does a double don't identify a should, a won't or a shoudn't? Historically, a double negative in English has meant a reinforced negative and not a positive,

i know right ? like irregardless ...basically means to regard right ? (litotes)

...that wasnt half bad lol !

Irregardless of the confusion you just caused me, which I find very irriuntating, I have to say that I'm completely confused because it's all so clear.

All you have to do is flow with the emotion.

x

Only if that set is large enough to include multiple choices depending on playing style. In reality, I should say that the set of good moves at any point in a game could be held to be all the good moves minus those where maintaining the balance is very tricky.

I'm wondering if there was such a country as "Spanish Equatorial Guinea" or some such? And if there was, what it would be now. Mali? Just guessing. I was also wondering about Tunisia.

Morocco sounds plausible to me.

I think many languages are spoken there.

I have to say that I don't understand this at all. Why should there be such a thing as "game theoretic best"? Context is all and context includes more factors than just the opponent (and oneself, to be clear). Who "expects" the score, re. the "greatest expected score"? A computer program programmed with some bias? Hard to see how it could be anything else, since even if a massive effort were put into analysing different types of player and chess-play, such an analysis could only have so-so predictive ability, since change happens, so it's only using previous data and trying to project the future.

Just a little nit-pick.

I read part of The Drifters by James A. Michener, and one of the characters goes to Morocco to avoid the draft. It's where some counter-cultural people converge in the novel.