"yeah he's totally trolling, I looked at one of his other games (much worse play and no pawn wall to speak of)
He's obviously not been playing 20 years, I chuckled at his post in fact."
i come across alot of trolls on other forums in on, like for the software apps i use, and im always like, why bother ???
if their lifes are that boring ,maybe they should become heroin addicts, brighten things up a bit
Shannon's number, if your strategy was full proof and unbeatable, then chess would be limited by that !!!! and it aint, infinite possibilities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number
Actually, even if his strategy was "fool" proof and unbeatable, the game-tree complexity of chess would still be limited by Shannon's number, not by the number of possibilities in his strategy. The game-tree complexity of chess takes into account all possible moves (those which win AND which lose). Also, you seem to not be grasping the idea of infinite. 10^123 is far from infinite...
Shannon's number, if your strategy was full proof and unbeatable, then chess would be limited by that !!!! and it aint, infinite possibilities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number
Actually, even if his strategy was "fool" proof and unbeatable, the game-tree complexity of chess would still be limited by Shannon's number, not by the number of possibilities in his strategy. The game-tree complexity of chess takes into account all possible moves (those which win AND which lose). Also, you seem to not be grasping the idea of infinite. 10^123 is far from infinite...
Some people are discussing the Shannon number, but I will say two things:
1. The Shannon number is only the "lower bound" of the chess game-tree complexity and only considers games going up to 40 moves.
2. It really has nothing to do with the pawn wall. There are positions where the side utilizing the wall wins and some where he/she loses, but either way the game depends on the player in how they got to the postition and how they will play on afterwards. Therefore it is pointless to argue about "possibilities" after a certain position, since most will be irrelevant.
Shannon's number, if your strategy was full proof and unbeatable, then chess would be limited by that !!!! and it aint, infinite possibilities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number
Actually, even if his strategy was "fool" proof and unbeatable, the game-tree complexity of chess would still be limited by Shannon's number, not by the number of possibilities in his strategy. The game-tree complexity of chess takes into account all possible moves (those which win AND which lose). Also, you seem to not be grasping the idea of infinite. 10^123 is far from infinite...
Some people are discussing the Shannon number, but I will say two things:
1. The Shannon number is only the "lower bound" of the chess game-tree complexity and only considers games going up to 40 moves.
2. It really has nothing to do with the pawn wall. There are positions where the side utilizing the wall wins and some where he/she loses, but either way the game depends on the player in how they got to the postition and how they will play on afterwards. Therefore it is pointless to argue about "possibilities" after a certain position, since most will be irrelevant.
sorry to plead ignorant, but what is the Shannon number?
I've heard that there are over 4 billion possible board positions after only 4 moves by each player, which blows my mind. Of course, most of these positions would never come about between decent players, but still...the possibilities
@ ab121705
Shannon's number was a value computed by a mathematician to estimate the number of possible games given some paramaters (length, average number of legal moves) for an "average" game of chess. As stated by Cnl_Duck it really has nothing to do with the arguably perfect strategy proposed by the OP, which I was merely pointing out myself. I did, however, misspeak in saying that the game-tree complexity of chess is still "limited by" Shannon's number when I should have said "approximated by." Your 4 billion moves by move four is surely a large number, but it pales in comparison to 10^123 (4 billion is on the order of 10^9).
sorry to plead ignorant, but what is the Shannon number?
I've heard that there are over 4 billion possible board positions after only 4 moves by each player, which blows my mind. Of course, most of these positions would never come about between decent players, but still...the possibilities
The Shannon number is, according to Wikipedia, the "estimated lower bound on the game-tree complexity of chess"; it was calculated by mathematician Claude Shannon to be about 10^123. You may not fully understand what this is about, but I don't either. ☺ Basically, it is the lower limit of what the total number of chess games is (the game-tree), and probably nothing close to the actual number.
Nonetheless it shows how amazing chess is. If you multiplied the estimated total number of atoms in the observable universe (about 10^80) by the estimated number of stars in the universe (10^21-10^23) you would get approximately 10^101, which is not even close to the Shannon number!
I know this has been discussed in other threads, but I wanted to show how it was unrelated to how strategies are good or bad.
EDIT: Sorry quacktastic, I didn't know you already answered the question.
The link is that in order to truly determine whether something us "unbeatable" or not chess would need to be solved, and in order to solve chess you'd need to examine every possible chess game (effectively a 32 peice tablebase), hence the mention of the Shannon number.
Or we could deduce that it's not unbeatable due to the fact that it's a crap strategy.
Yeah, that would be easier.
Hmmm.
Yep, sounds good.
A bit like the big push idea in the Great War.
Which was a success - well for one side.
Sort of.
Or maybe I'll go hyper modern.
You gotta be up to date after all.
Capablanca had a famous masterpiece where he used a pawn wall in a massivbe invertedV formation. It's in a Chernev book. Can't recall the opponent. [Bernstein?]
The pawn wall IS unbeatable as long as your opponent plays fair and attacks your pawns with his pieces. If he captures your pieces or tries to trade pawns he might "win" but that's poor sportsmanship. In an OTB tourney the referee would call him out on that.
sorry to plead ignorant, but what is the Shannon number?
I've heard that there are over 4 billion possible board positions after only 4 moves by each player, which blows my mind. Of course, most of these positions would never come about between decent players, but still...the possibilities
The Shannon number is, according to Wikipedia, the "estimated lower bound on the game-tree complexity of chess"; it was calculated by mathematician Claude Shannon to be about 10^123. You may not fully understand what this is about, but I don't either. ☺ Basically, it is the lower limit of what the total number of chess games is (the game-tree), and probably nothing close to the actual number.
Nonetheless it shows how amazing chess is. If you multiplied the estimated total number of atoms in the observable universe (about 10^80) by the estimated number of stars in the universe (10^21-10^23) you would get approximately 10^101, which is not even close to the Shannon number!
I know this has been discussed in other threads, but I wanted to show how it was unrelated to how strategies are good or bad.
EDIT: Sorry quacktastic, I didn't know you already answered the question.
I like that because it will be at least a few more weeks before I solve chess. HAHAHHAHAHA
Funny, but I've been experimenting with my own variations on the idea and it has actually been quite effective. It seriously annoys the opponent, and on a basic level it allows to win on time. They seem very confused and frustrated. Frustrated to the point of trading a bishop for a pawn just to punch a hole. I've also noticed good protection coverage of multiple pieces and positions. Even in straight across trades I'm ending up with a positional advantage a lot of times. It may not actually be a sound strategy, but I'm discovering new tactics and am having fun with it for now all the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game-tree_complexity