How close are we to solving chess?

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silentfilmstar13
dalmatinac wrote: How close are we to lock this topic?

 Yes!  No more discussion!  It displeases the great dalmatinac!


Gabriel_dCF
Sothilde wrote:

There is now way of telling what technology will be capable of in 50 years or so. So who knows, we'll just have to wait and see what new developments will bring.

However, if chess would ever be solved strongly, in such a way that you could say (as with checkers now for example)  1. e4 draws, 1.d4 loses (just naming a random example), I wouldn't really look forward to that day. That being besides the point.

Offcourse it wouldn't ruin the pleasure of over the board play, just you and another amateur playing eachother, however, it would take away a lot of the romanticism knowing that whatever position you're in, of every move it can be said it wins, draws or loses...

But we are still far away from such a day, so let's just keep on playing and improving ourselves


 

I don't think so. People still play checkers don't they?  Moreover, children still play tic-tac-toe! I, myself, used to enjoy this game when I was younger... before discovering it always draws when played properly. Tic-tac-toe has already been solved and its solution is so simple any children can understand.

It won't happen the same thing with chess because even if someday a computer solves it, as with checkers, that solution will be so complex that no person will be able to understand and apply in a game. People will be able to have fun with chess as well as nowadays.

But if you think that mistery and sense of infinity are important for the soul of the game, don't worry, it will take much more time to later on solve Fischer Random Chess, Capablanca Chess, Transcendental Chess...  


AquaMan

OK, here's the plan.  Someone write a program that allows the calculation and storage of data to be distributed across all the participating, networked computers across the world.   Maybe it will be done by chess.com staff.  Consider this a "feature" request.  Then to test it, we can have a tournament consisting of a top GM team + strongest chess engines against chess.com distributed definitive solution to chess.  

Cool! 

(My apology if this idea has already been mentioned.) 

edit: Reading through some of the posts this morning, there's approx. 10^40 positions in chess, you say?  Yikes, that's a lot!  A really lot.  OK, never mind.  I'm going back to reading Nimzowitsch's "My System."  Close enough to a solution for me. 


LydiaBlonde

Few days ago, I posted a discusion about some basic concepts in a subject "computers and chess" (page 5 in this topic, post #82). I argued: computers don't play chess, but programs, adn programs are wroten by people. Computer is only a tool. People (human beings) are a strange creatures, capable for self-programing (as comander Data in Star Trek - Next Generation can write his own programs when he concluded a new skill - as f.e. dating Wink - is necessary). A human being has a self-conscieus, he/she is a person, a "self", and computer is only a tool, as like as a hamer.

And then, something not-so-competelly diferent! About philospophy, and a litel theology (Aristotlle said philosophy = theology = wisdom!).

 mhooner wrote:

Does God play chess? And if he does does he always win?

It is said that God knows the end from the beginning; would chess bore Him?


 If u have in mind an idea of God as it was developed in western philosophy and adopted in monotheism, an answer is, undoubtedly, yes. 

If you are platonist (and this tradition is strong in western and islamic tradiciton), or a hindusist who accept a concept of akasha,  you can accept that all our ideas pre-existed in the eternal (out-of-time) world of pure ideas (including all science, but also all possible concepts abut good and beauty etc.). When a human being "created" or "discovered" a new idea (concept, theory etc.), it's onyl, as Plato said, recall of something for this uper world. Among others, chess, and all possible chess positions and games (and also all other possible variations of chess, as shogu etc.!), pre-existed in the world of pure ideas (or akasha). 

In neo-platonism, Plato's ideas are developed in cncept of God, a "self", an intellect who contain all pure ideas. Aristotle has also an important role in this development, with considerations in the "lambda" book of his "Metaphisics".  What God add to a sterile word of pure ideas is an act (God is a "pure act"), a "let-it-be!" (as She said in Genesis: "let be light" etc.), an actualisation: provide existence to some ideas. (Hindusm didn't make this step.) Those concepts were crucial for a developnet of the idea of God in christianity and islam.

 And the next important step in the development of God-of-philosophers: to cold do it, God must be in-finity far from our finite, material universe. She is infinite (and becouse that she is also in-definite, can't be defined).

And so, we came back to a question of chess: in spite of a high complexiti for a finite point of wiev, chess is a finite game. And all what is finite, is equall for an infitinte intelect: zero. It isn't important is a number of possible chess games 10^123 or 10^300 or 10^(10^300). Chess isn't more complicated for God then tic-tac-toe, which has only few hundreds of possible lines. And God is also eternal, out-of-time, so she compute infinite fast.

We, human beings, could try to understend God by research her creation. And we are not restricted to this finite, material universe around us: we, as self-programing beings, also can exploit an infinite number of "virtual" worlds, in arts, philosphy, chess, love. This capability is her free gift to us: a revealation of her infinite love. (And chess it one of signs she realy love us! Cool)

And I am going to conclude this with a reference to Imanuel Kant: the only original sin is lazyness - i.e. to not use your capability to research, to uncerstand, to create, to love. 

 


bjering
LydiaBlonde wrote:

Chess isn't more complicated for God then tic-tac-toe, which has only few hundreds of possible lines. 


 You are probably right... even though tic-tac-toe has 9! = 362.880 lines ... (or 26.830 "up to reflection and rotation")...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac-toe 


LydiaBlonde
bjering wrote:

 You are probably right... even though tic-tac-toe has 9! = 362.880 lines ... (or 26.830 "up to reflection and rotation")...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac-toe " target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac-toe 


 Thx for this particual piece of information! I had an idea it need to be less (including reflection and rotation!), but well, it's not my teritory. Smile


bjering
bjering wrote: LydiaBlonde wrote:

Chess isn't more complicated for God then tic-tac-toe, which has only few hundreds of possible lines. 


 You are probably right... even though tic-tac-toe has 9! = 362.880 lines ... (or 26.830 "up to reflection and rotation")...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac-toe " target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac-toe 


I'll just correct myself... there is 255.168 possible lines... the 9!-posibilites is only, when you always play to the game board is full.


YoloMan47

Guys its not solvable

mathemetitian
RooksBailey wrote:

Computers are definitely winning, but it is not as one sided as you might think. I remember reading somewhere that when you remove a chess computer's openings book and its endgame database, that even the strongest program is beatable. In other words, when a computer program has to think for itself and not rely on pre-analyzed positions, it can run into trouble quickly because it doesn't have the two bookends that it uses to tie its strategy together.

Am I correct on this? I can't recall where I read this bit of chess AI info.

I'm unsure. what I am sure about is that there are still positions that we have solved and computers have not.

The last position of the Saving Draws lesson, which is under the Forcing Moves collection in the intermediate lessons guide, is an example. You can use the analysis and see for yourself.

ChessMasteryOfficial

Very close I think. Computers are getting powerful really fast.

0wumbo0

Bro what is this 15 year bump

Nytemere

I think you'll first have to write a program dedicated to solving chess and saving the variations, decide what variations are better than the others, make sure it works which means run it multiple times, and then build a super computer dedicated to solving chess and only solving chess which I think with out technology right now would take years. So yeah, really hard

Ziryab
polosportply wrote:

I know that games can be solved, and that they are trying to solve chess these days.

I was wondering how close we were to achieving that goal.

Computers are advancing so rapidly that it should take only another 10,000 years.