Solving chess

Agree.  If chess is solved it would be an interesting academic exercise, but wouldn't make a lick of difference to the way it's played.

I agree.  If computer programs that run on anyone's pc can beat anyone didn't kill chess, then a solution won't matter either.  I still love it, and tournaments are still going strong.

yeah, the thing with engines is that at any given time it would suggest a line that have a better outcome.

if one allow a few alternative lines, they might impact on fractional improvements that might snowball into a stronger aternative that can swing the game into blacks favour...afterall, equality is not alway's the very next defensive move, it might be as a result of a few creative moves, of which a sacrifice can turn a game where value of a piece, and not position, come into play, and this can also cause equality.

Fact is that creativity can change outcome, you can test your creativeness, by simply switching off the computer, and you might find that the game have no outcome, no matter what the advantage the engine had.

This is why chess can only be captured by flesh and blood, because of our creative minds:)

I cannot see why us humans must feel threatened by a computer.

we had developed engines that had reached a point where it is just too much effort to compete with, its like feeling bad because we invented a bicycle that can go faster that what we can run, and now we feel that we were not made good enough, or made as fast as a bicycle.

We must view a chess engine as something that can give lines, some is better that others, and they can all be played, should we choose one...

we can choose what transport we want, but at some point, we will only become spectators, and we would not live the life we are made to live.

Because life itself is a game of chess, one will realise that it have much options, and that a chess engine become a tiny little dust particle, and one have to make a move on what it is you choose...do you want to win a chessgame, or do you want to win the bigger much larger portion of chess, the spiritual chessgame of life... you will find that a single game of chess is just a little burden.

You can even come to the conclusion that for white to have the advantage, you would have to make a move...fact is, you don't have to move at all. If you dont move, then you had already outsmart the engine. Or, you could just decide to allow black to move first, and it would not know what to do.

I wouldnt read to much into it:D

@RoseQueen: Connect Four is solved but it's still fun. Same with checkers. I don't think that solving chess would really change a whole lot if it were possible.

I aggre, it would just be a waste of billions of dollars.

Billions of dollars? Hardly. People are going to build faster and more powerful computers all the time, and their primary motivation is never going to be to solve chess. If it happens, it'll be the byproduct of enough development in computational power. It won't cost much to set aside a single computer to crunch the numbers for a week or two when millions of such computers will be calculating more interesting things such as the mechanism for the formation of life from proteins or the chemical processes involved in consciousness.

You underestimate the complexities involved in solving chess.

There are about the same possible chess positions as atoms in the universe. (really!)

The computer will have to look many moves deeper to tell if that .15 advantage is real or not.  For example, is the king safe in the endgame, or is there a weakness that will reveal itself towards the end of the game.  Then after the calculations all the way to the endgame, if the .15 advantage does stick, it probably means there the computer versus computer match is a draw.  (keyword computer versus computer)

How does the computer evaulate a percentage of a pawn after going through all the possible moves anyways?

For anyone who believes chess is a win for white, how do you account for the fact that for games between evenly matched players (human or computer), the percentage of draws has a strong positive relationship with the skill of the player, and taken to its logical extension, that means that perfect play means a draw?

I don't really believe this logic, though. I think every move for white is a fatal mistake, white is in fatal zugzwang, and black wins by force.

Are you even listening to yourself? Do you seriously consider it more likely that a 0.15 advantage will turn into a win than into a draw with best play?

As far as my question about the evaluation after going through as many variations as possible, looks like Wikipedia had the answer : ).

"

Evaluation functions typically evaluate positions in hundredths of a pawn, and consider material value along with other factors affecting the strength of each side. When counting up the material for each side, typical values for pieces are 1 point for a pawn, 3 points for a knight or bishop, 5 points for a rook, and 9 points for a queen. (See Chess piece relative value.) By convention, a positive evaluation favors White, and a negative evaluation favors Black.

The king is sometimes given an arbitrary high value such as 200 points (Shannon's paper) or 1,000,000,000 points (1961 USSR program) to ensure that a checkmate outweighs all other factors (Levy & Newborn 1991:45). Evaluation functions take many factors into account, such as pawn structure, the fact that a pair of bishops are usually worth more, centralized pieces are worth more, and so on. The protection of kings is usually considered, as well as the phase of the game (opening, middle or endgame).

"

Maybe you could do: computer evaulation to human evaluation to computer evaluation etc.  Then as more scrutiny takes place, you find out white doesn't win by force.

"Are you even listening to yourself? Do you seriously consider it more likely that a 0.15 advantage will turn into a win than into a draw with best play?"

Yes, I'm listening to myself. And I do consider that a 0.15+ advantage will win for white. With perfect play, any advantage, even to tiniest advantage will win. As I pointed out before, the statistics greatly favor white at master lever. This gets higher the further up the rating latter you are. For example, to 1200 players the stats would be about 50 50. This slowly raises until at master level, it's 40% to 30%, a considerable advantage.

"For anyone who believes chess is a win for white, how do you account for the fact that for games between evenly matched players (human or computer), the percentage of draws has a strong positive relationship with the skill of the player, and taken to its logical extension, that means that perfect play means a draw?"

Even though the draw percentage raises along with the player's skill this does not mean that the result of a perfect match is draw. (White's chances of winning rise as well) The draws at higher level are actually caused by tiny errors. Many of these are to small to be found by human or computer easily. Some of these errors would give away the whole advantage while other may only give away part. Because these mistakes happen at all levels of play the causes draws to happen. A perfect computer would not make any micro-errors leaving it impossible for black to take away this 0.15 advantage.

the very first move in chess, would that be considered a) attacking or b)defensive move?

                                                   and

for the white pieces, the queen-side is on the left hand side of the player, and for the other player is his queen-side to his right hand side. Therefore the position of the pieces differ on the board relative to the player.

Value of pieces increase according to their position, it have to have an influence the way the pieces is relative to the player.

I wonder if anyone had thought of it:)

This is not proven, and won't  be until chess is solved.  I think this is where your argument fundamentally breaks down. 

The .15 is a determination from the computer's evaluation function, after trying all variations, or using more advanced pruning methods during calculation.  It's not exactly accurate.  You could have humans look over the highest scoring lines and say, this looks to have a lot of features of a drawish game or something like that, or this advantage looks strong.

Basically +.15 is equal to features of the position the computer deemed favorable for white - it doesn't mean white has a sure win.  There could actually be some kind of theoretical drawn endgame, yet the computer would say +.15.

You're a bit young, so I wont continue to argue this, but here's the problem.

You're continually confusing the relative evaluation with the true evaluation in spite of having it pointed out to you many times.  They are completely different scales.  It's like saying you know the mass of something so therefore you also know the weight while admitting you don't know how much gravity there is.

What we know:  The relative evaluation of the starting position relatively favors white for having the first move.  It's a small value because we dont' have all the information.

What we don't know: The true evaluation, such as white wins, black wins, or draw.  These three are the only true evaluations of the starting position.

So like I said you're still mixing your ideas of what an advantage is.  There is no such thing as a true "tiny advantage"  There are only three "true" evaluations.  White is winning, draw, or black is winning. 

For example, in the endgames I showed you, you said "I mean an actual 1.00 advantage" but there is no such thing as an actual, or true +1.00 advantage.  If the advantage is enough for white to win the true evaluation is "mate in ____" ... that's what it means to know the actual advantage.  On the other hand if it is said the evaluation is +1.00 that is equivalent to saying "our best guess"

If you think the actual advantage for white in the starting position is "white wins" then say so.  If you think the relative advantage is +0.15, then that's fine too, but you're mixing the two of them up in your head mistaking one for the other.

No, It can't be 100% proven. (not until chess is solved anyway) But logic would tell us that any advantage would win because if a perfect player makes no mistakes the  .15+ or the third pawn or whatever would stay until the endgame, allowing white win.

logic would also tell you the 6 positions I posed earlier are wins for white or black because of advantages of the move and lots of material.  But in chess the drawing margin is larger than something as small as having an extra move and in some cases even having extra pieces doesn't matter.

You can't prove the best move without knowing all the positions.  Although it's true if we only knew something like 80% of all positions + a very strong engine on a very fast computer it's likely you could say that for all practical purposes chess is solved.