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.
Setting aside the fact that you can have much larger material imbalances that are dead drawn, you're assuming that +.15 is an accurate assessment. How can you know this?
Thankfully it's not my job to convince you :) There is plenty of information in this thread for you to read if you want.
"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."
No, logic would say the 6 positions are drawn because there is no way to check mate. There is a material plus, but no advantage.
Yes, but the same computers you're putting so much faith in to tell you the opening position is +0.15 grossly misread those positions as well.
"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."
No, logic would say the 6 positions are drawn because there is no way to check mate. There is a material plus, but no advantage.
!!
Excellent, that's exactly my point. In the starting position there is a plus (right to move first) but there is no way to check mate. There is a plus, but no advantage!
Some of those endgames were very simple to draw while others take very accurate play. To prove some of them would take many pages of analysis (and that's with only a few pieces on the board!)
So because the relative advantage of the first move in the starting position is much much smaller than the relative advantage in those (and all) endgames, it's safe to assume chess is a draw with perfect play.
I'm putting my faith more in the grandmaster estimation that a tempo is worth up to half a pawn.
I wouldn't go quite as far to say that it's safe to assume it, but it's certainly reasonable to conclude it.
I'm putting my faith more in the grandmaster estimation that a tempo is worth up to half a pawn.
You forgot the whole thing. GMs say "three tempo is worth a pawn in the opening"
Byt he way GMs also think chess is a draw with perfect play 
I wouldn't go quite as far to say that it's safe to assume it, but it's certainly reasonable to conclude it.
Yes, that was a better way to word it.
I wouldn't go quite as far to say that it's safe to assume it, but it's certainly reasonable to conclude it.
Because we are being so very careful not to make unfounded assumptions in this thread.
Right, sorry, bad assumption on my part.
How is 1 tempo possibly enough to win the whole game?
I'm talking perfect players here.
I'm talking perfect players here.
Which means black is also perfect. So how could white possibly turn 1 tempo into victory?
I am amazed by the patience some of you have shown with this kid. It's like you are all banging your heads repeatedly against a wall of ignorance and misunderstanding.
Three simple things, which have already been stated, which blow your arguments into a million (or an infinite number of, if you prefer) pieces.
1. We don't know that this supposed 0.15 advantage exists. It is a GUESS made by the computer, because it cannot calculate the true advantage. Therefore, we don't know that white has any advantage at all.
2.If white DOES have an advantage, then by definition, this advantage must be one which is enough to win with, and therefore equals infinity, or "mate in x". In this case, our current computers are grossly innacurate. 0.15 is very far away from infinity. In fact, all advantages not in the form of 0.00 or "mate in x" are grossly innacurate.
3. Grandmasters, Masters, and Experts, all of whom know infinitely more about chess than you or I, are almost universally of the opinion that chess is theoretically a draw.
If you cannot understand this, there is no hope for you in this regard, and it is pointless arguing further. I suggest you reread the above points until you understand, however long it takes you.
I don't believe there's a forced mate for white. I wonder, if the same chess engine that solved chess (or some other board game) played itself, wouldn't it be a draw?
Would it be at all helpful to make white be only able to move a pawn one forward? then the rest is like usual.
"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.
No. How many times have you seen even the top players and even top computers in the world fail to convert a supposedly large advantage into a win, even with lots of time to calculate? I don't know about you, but for me, the answer is "lots".
Technically, having a king and knight against a king should count as a +3 advantage, 20 times your stated opening advantage, and still insufficient for a win. Certain fortress positions give similar evaluations (+3 or more) against the defending pieces, but it is completely impossible to beat them, and they are a draw. Why do you assume the much smaller +.15 advantage is a win, where these advantages are a draw? Computers don't know everything, especially when they've been programmed by humans.
Actually the statistics favour white about the same amount at every level, the only difference being that more draws happen as skill goes up.
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)
No, they lower. People about my level probably get 50% wins, 10% draws, 40% losses as white, give or take. At master level, as you mentioned, it's about 40-30-30, so white's winning chances actually go down significantly.
The draws at higher level are actually caused by tiny errors.
Nope. The wins at any level are actually caused by tiny (or big) errors. Find me a single game where anyone wins where no mistakes are made by the losing side. You can't.
Actually, a question for you:
Let's take the premise that chess is a draw (if you don't know what a premise is, let's say we're assuming that chess is a draw for the sake of argument)
What would you expect a computer evaluation to be? The draw, of course, wouldn't be proven for at least several dozen moves on both sides in most cases. In the meantime, white has an average of a half-move advantage. Wouldn't you expect that to lead most computers to evaluate that as a slight, maybe even .15, advantage?
I think you have a black/white mentality: things are either a win for black or a win for white, and no room for draws. Does a computer's complicated but often almost arbitrary evaluation function REALLY have to be EXACTLY zero to satisfy you that it could possibly be a draw? Maybe it's just because you're very young. You'll learn that the world has an infinite variety of shades of grey, not to mention colour. You've precluded from your thoughts the possibility of a draw that a computer doesn't evaluate as exactly 0.
Another question: the english opening (1. c4). My computer is evaluating that as about +.05 for black, so according to your logic, a forced win for black, yet masters play it as white in about 10% of games, winning 38.5% of them (more than any other popular opening) and only losing only 26%. How do you account for this? It's not a surprise opening, 1. c4 is very well known in chess theory. What convoluted logic would you use to account for it? Are humans just especially weak at c4 openings as black, when they should actually win? Where are they going wrong? Even following the lines that the best computers recommend, masters still win more as white. How can this be?
"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.
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 don't 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.
I know, there are only 3 evaluations. But I'm using the code used for non-perfect players because just saying white mate in __ tells us nothing.