Define "Best Move"

I think that is a huge departure from the usual practice. One often sees the advice to be content to play the opening seeking nothing more than a playable middlegame - the whole idea being to be content to achieve an equal position where there is still a very real potential for one side to go wrong. A position seems to me to be routinely referred to as drawn if there is perceived to be little chance for an obscure forced win and little chance for one side to go wrong while playing with moderate competence. For example, one would say that the vast majority of king and two knight against king positions are drawn. The vast majority of evaluations (of any kind) seem to me to be based on intuition. For most of chess history, hasn't something as simple as queen and king against queen and king been beyond the powers of calculation?

Again, I think that is a departure from the usual usage. "+-" and "-+" have been used for a "decisive" advantage without any regard (as far as I can tell) to whether or not calculation-verification is possible. Other notations are used for advantages that are not perceived as "decisive".

We do not have access to anything other than potentially sub-optimal play in the vast majority of positions. Consequently, it strikes me as completely appropriate (and common practice) for annotators to comment with potentially sub-optimal play in mind.

We have been going down the road of usage for +-, etc. for decades. If you want to argue that that road has been a mistake, you might want to think about the degree to which the chess world has shown signs of perceiving a ridiculous result. I don't think there is any question that evaluations have changed over time (and might be different for club players), and, as far as I can tell, the chess world is okay with that. For the most part, we do not have access to absolute truth and usual communication is not about that.

Well it is. The evaluation is derived based on the best moves.  You claim that the best moves is the move that best preserves the evaluation. You cant determine the evaluation without the best moves, so you are using circular logic.

In my opinion there are two main factors regarding the 'best move':

• First of all the evaluation of 'best move' should be constrained to a 'measurable' line of moves/play, because the number of variations to tread on can blow up exponentially if we don't watch it.
• Second, and most close to the first, time. The first point holds an immediate effect on the time used on any evaluation, and vice versa. Any complex position should be allocated a limited time allowance or else we could spend years trying to find the best move. For example, it can be argued that one could begin looking for the winning move from the very first move in a game, but this is crazy, so we segment the game.

So, only with these two points (and perhaps more) is it feasible, or realistic, to calculate the 'best move'. In this case the best move itself being one that evaluates to the best advantage under the constraints of a certain amount of moves and time.

We use our understanding of the game, of chess, to segment the game more accordingly, so that we may apply the best methods of evaluation. The key word here being 'method'. These change over time.

What if GM's knew the perfect games but just play along, ahahaha...

When I say "true" evaluation I mean e.g. endgame tablebases. That's just a collection of every possible position. The "best" move is just selecting a branch that contains at least one draw for each of your future moves (or one win if you were winning). A mistake is selecting a branch that contains no draws (or no wins if you were winning) for your moves.

Anyway, even if we use a regular computer algorithm, it's not circular reasoning. The best move is the one that gives the best evaluation. The best evaluation is based on things like material, space, pawn structure, and blah blah blah. Yes the best moves result in the best evaluation, but as long as we're not defining them that way it's not circular reasoning.

Imagine I said the best way to save money is to buy products at the lowest price, and you say that's circular because there's no way to know what's best without knowing which costs less (??)

Thanks for the insight.

I don't think what I'm saying is really incompatible with "usual practice". I'm not saying "equal" and "drawn" mean the same thing in all respects, just that they mean the same thing with respect to the evaluation of a position in terms of the expected outcome with precise play on both sides.

And I'd have to disagree with you about N+N+KvK or Q+KvK. I don't think, even going a long ways back, theory assessed these positions based primarily on intuition. I think analysts started with an end mating position and then tried to figure out if they could engineer getting there by force. If they could, it was considered a win. If they couldn't, it was considered a draw. I'm no historian of endgame theory (that's for sure) but endgames have that special advantage that retrograde analysis is viable in a way not typical of middle games or openings

We don't have access to anything other than sub-optimal play, but I think what (most) annotators try to do is evaluate the position based on their best guess of what the result would be from optimal play. That's the intuition part.

I mean if I annotate a position on move five as =, I mean by that it's my intuition that the 32 piece tablebase with show "drawn in 102", or something similar

@RedGirlZ... My reading of what you said was since we can't know what the objective best move is then the best move is subjective. I'm just calling that out and saying it's not true. The best move is the objective best move regardless of whether we know what it is or not. Remember, you specifically said "The best move isn't objective, It's subjective".

I see no reason to believe that annotators are attempting to evaluate a position in terms of the expected outcome with precise play on both sides. As far as I can tell, expressions like "stands slightly better" are explicit references to the real-world difficulty that an opponent might have playing precisely.

My assertion about N+N+KvK was that "one would say that the vast majority of king and two knight against king positions are drawn". What objection do you have to that assertion?

My assertion was about "queen and king against queen and king". What end positions are appropriately considered and, without a computer, how does calculation-without-intuition identify them?

@kindaspongey Don't forget ZZZ ;-)

Again, as far as I can tell, symbols like the stands-slightly-better symbol are used as explicit references to the real-world difficulty that an opponent might have playing optimally even if the position is drawn with optimal play.

As near as I can tell, "best" is not a reference to what would come from a computer solution of chess. It seems to me to be a reference to what would give one the best chances of winning against a human opponent. There can be many drawing moves in a position, but some will give the opponent more difficulty than others. Put a Black king on f8, a White king on g3, and a White pawn on d4. Would you rather play Kh2 or Kf4 ?

Good comeback!

1) Yes. In this instance, theoretical means that while it is not practical to do so, it is possible.

2a) In a deterministic game, this is usually the best way to determine the probability of victory. However, is a fallible method if you are not playing the side that has a 'winning strategy'.

2b) As described above if you are playing the side with the 'winning strategy', you do not need to factor in human behavior. If you are playing the other side, a winning strategy does require personalization to the player