True or False Chess is a Draw with Best Play from Both Sides

Maybe "undefined". Is 1.e4 superior to 1.d4? Can the French Defense be refuted? Is the Scandinavian Opening a weak choice?

As mentioned several times before "best play" means playing any move which does not change the result of the game.  Thus since the starting position is a draw if either White or Black makes a move which would lose the game--he/she is not using "best play"

There is a ton of evidence that chess is a draw. Chess is far too complex to "solve" but the very best

players know and assume chess is a draw when neither side makes an error.

Nothing is 100% certain. But the best players see the ton of evidence.

Are there endgames that went for decades with incorrect evaluations?

Yes

You are wrong my friend  if you cheat the moderators are watching you like hawks they will either suspend or expell depending how serious it is sorry if I scared you

Hi

Lamborg guy what does cheating have anything to do with the question?  Why do you think you scared me?   

Your most persuasive proposition to date, Ponz111.  Thank you for this idea.

Perhaps you are a TRUE Scotsman!  

Better than Lc0? Very doubtful.

is this the longest running thread on this site? it is 7 years old. crazy. 

The modern game of chess is around 500 years old, so to put a rough upper limit on the total number of games played so far, let’s assume around one per cent of people who have lived since then have played a different game of chess every day for 50 years. That means that around 10 million million games of chess have been played. - this is from an science article.

just to give the benefit of the doubt, let's assume that number is low and multiply it by 100. that would yield one billion. Not to split hairs, but there have not been "Billions (plural) of games" played creation to date. Certainly not tens of billions. (that will only be attained by the number of people on this planet that contract COVID in the next three or four months by applying the current rate of reported infections and applying the rule of 72 as to how fast things double). 

this is a classic example of innumeracy. For most people, one Million, one Billion, one Trillion, quadrillion, all sound like such huge numbers they lose their meaning. People throw them out with equal validity not realizing they are orders of magnitude apart and are not in the slightest related to each other.  

Such large numbers are akin to giving 110% effort.

The lesson in Rhetoric from this thread is -- Chess is a wonderful game that confounds the limits of mathematics, and connects us as people.  Ponz111 is a persuasive avatar for this conversation, but no matter how persuasive his (strong and weak) arguments might be, some folks insist we can only resolve this "ethical, mathematical, and scientific dilemma" by living with, and thinking like, the GODS on Mount Olympus.

On Earth, Ponz111 gets my vote. 

The World is Made of Words.  Feel free to read why, and how --

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/stanley-fish/winning-arguments/

Not what most people mean by best play.

On that criterion, in almost all KBNK, KQK or KRK positions , for example, almost any move by either player would be best play (under FIDE basic rules).  

E.g. so long as White doesn't ever move his queen here, it's best play on your criterion (again under basic rules).

I would define best play as play which maximises the players points expectation and as a secondary objective either minimises the distance to a win in a winning position or maximises the distance to a loss in a losing position. This is dependent on the opponent (e.g. in KQKR whether the opponent could be expected to resign if he loses his piece without retaking) .  

The question should probably have read, "... with perfectly accurate DTM play by both sides" (or, for Competition Rules, DTM50 play - the answer could be different in this case).

The answer is rather obvious to the top players. They know chess is a draw. 

Also, I have big feet--so know they exist.

In some positions bishops are better than knights and in some positions knights are better than bishops, 

For sure chess is a game--if chess is a sport or not? somewhat depends on the definition of "sport". Most words have several definitions.

That's true of Greek words, Latin words, (and lots of German words too).  Ha!

Great thread Ponz11.  You have the patience of "Job," and (apparently) it drives some of the chessnuts wild.

Keep up the good work, and continue to take them to task at  Bridge too).  

Chess is simply a teaching tool upon which there are those who offer prizes to accomplish various tasks in the chess domain.  "Is chess a draw with [equal] play ...?"  "Equal" becomes a mysterious term here because "equal" exits the realm of mathematics (and enters the realm of philosophy?). "Equal" explains the mind of the man; good luck with that one!!!

...

The question was NOT is chess a draw with Equal play.

I would answer this question with the answer, "False". Due to that I believe most players don't play their best play at all times due to outside influences such as a simple lack of concentration at one moment in the game where one player makes a mistake and the other player is able to take advantage of it at the time to create a draw.