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

Limited  What does no one know?

There are approximately 1500 GMs on this planet. Supposed we reduced each GM to the size of a penny and put them all in  a box!?  And then blindfolded took them out of the box one by one!? And we ask each GM if he thought chess is a draw with best play?  and assuming they could answer you get these results:

1st one  chess is a draw  -one chance out of two?  2nd one chess is a draw--one chance out of 4 both would say same? 3rd one chess is a draw--one chance out of 8.  And now using this math and assumed we go and get the answers to all 1500--what would be the odds that all would agree?

I’ll venture all my Bitcoin against someone proving it is not a draw.

In these forums, I have often appeared to side with the Negative (against the OP’s proposition) because I recognize that 32 piece tablebases are not gonna be available while the child born tomorrow is still living. OTOH, I also respect the wisdom of every chess player since Steinitz (here I’m only counting those with the skill and understanding that has produced a master rating) who has ventured an opinion on the topic. They all know that wins and losses only follow from errors.

One of the all time best games ever played was Topalov — Anand, Sophia 2005. Anand annotated  the game for informant. He pointed out his error: a move order inaccuracy early in the game. Both played terrific chess from that point on. Anand resigned because he was about to promote a pawn, which would have led to a checkmate in a few moves by Topalov’s minor pieces and a pawn.

I tried to find out about the draw issue in high level correspondence chess and also about the level of draws in computer chess. My search found a discussion "Can Chess Survive Artificial Intelligence?" on a site called "Hacker News" and one of the posts I thought was rather insightfull. Here is the address and the part of the post that was interesting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20756717

rjf72 11 months ago [–]

"This article misses the actual problem. It suggests that computers are gradually yielding a perfection of play which is implied to lead to a draw. But that's not really what's happening. In fact computer chess now already has fewer draws than top level human chess. The issue is that chess is unimaginably vast. The article talks about people having the first 15 moves prepared. That's true, and false. In each position there are somewhere around 30 legal moves on average and 3-4 decent moves. That means after just the first 15 moves there are 3.5^30 reasonable moves to explore. That's 20 quadrillion reasonable options. And obviously the entire search space, 30^30 is rather larger.

No human has explored more than a minuscule fraction of that domain, and today computers are already much stronger than the strongest humans. In times past this was not such a big deal. You play what looks good or promising, and even once you get outside of your preparation it'll still be human against human or, at worst, human against team of humans. But this is where computers now come in. Now if you enter into a complex position that your opponent has analyzed with a computer and you haven't, you stand a very real chance of losing without your opponent ever having to think for himself or you having any real chance.

As a result of this players are increasingly preferring lines which tend to be very "solid" with much less room for your opponent to find 'surprise moves' or novelties. And even if they happen to find such a move you stand a good chance of being able to somewhat safely navigate the waters since the position is, again, "solid." The problem should be obvious. This sort of chess is extremely prone to draws."

Arthur  Of course a human with a computer will often beat a human alone.

There are several reasons that the highest levels or correspondence chess is extremely prone to draws.  One of the main reasons is the players know chess is a draw and play in a manner not to make mistakes and lose.  And there is nothing wrong with this!

And of course humans have not played the vast majority of possible positions.  This has been addressed many times in these forums.  One of the best postings on this subject has been by Elubas recently. 

I am not sure what point you are trying to make?  That playing very strong chess makes the game prone to draws?? Why do you think that is a problem??  {or are you trying to make some other point?}

There are: Anand - Nepo Nations Cup 2020 which was held on chess.com, the engine couldnt find any mistakes from Nepos side that made him lose.

rishabh   What is your point?  That a weak engine could not find a mistake in a game? What engine??

I would bet that a strong correspondence player would be able to find the mistake or mistakes made by Nepo made!?!!  Why don't you give the game for our enlightenment?

Sure , I will , weak?? Its Stockfish 11.  Well , if u wanna find the best possible moves ever then u need to wait for 1000 years as chess is a game of unlimited beauty.

Just see after move 15 f5 !! The engine suddenly goes from 0 to +6 and it cant even find Nepo's mistake !!

Stockfish thinks this is a win though... So I don't trust it much...

Plus stockfish loses chess games to Alphazero and Leela(other chess engines)

But, well this is not at all related to the topic.

I know, but I'm just saying stockfish can't always play best play and it can lost chess games, so it's kind of like stockfish isn't really the thing you use to decide whether it's just not best play and if there is mistakes , this is really complicated stuff... Also you can't really tell what's the best move because "best move" is only what we think now, who knows when will the main lines now in the openings turn out to not be good at all?

But It can spot mistakes, but stockfish also didnt find any mistakes here.. 

With all these comments all I can say is we might not even know the answer for this title so just take a rest, and solve it after a couple dozen centuries...

Ya, lets just enjoy and improve at the game of chess, the person who created chess was the ULTIMATE GENIUS as there is nothing more beautiful game in the world than chess.

rishabh  The game you showed had lots of errors.  The first slight error is Black was playing into a line known to be pretty good for White.

5. ,,, Nb6  is correct   also  6. ...Nb6 is correct.  Black certainly does not need to activate the White bishop on d2!! and Black certainly did not have to play a line where Black trades his powerful g7 bishop for the much weaker White bishop on d2!   

To make things somewhat worse--Black did not have to play 7. ...c5 which again helps White to trade his weak bishop for the strong g7 bishop. 

Also even with these mistakes Black might have tried  10. ... f5 and then he had chances to survive. 

So Black made several mistakes in that game and deserved to lose.

rishabh  It is certainly true that Often stockfish can spot mistakes--but it is also true that sometimes stockfish does not spot rather obvious mistakes as in the game you showed.

I think it is a draw with the best play and this is gonna be proven when we make sure engine don't make errors anymore

ponz111 - I think my point is that I still find logical fallacies in the argument that chess is a draw. In my search I did see that in high level correspondence chess wins are very scarce and the general belief is although chess may never be "solved" experience shows without blunders the game is a draw and the analogy is made with checkers where the high level players saw it was a draw long before it was proved so by computers. I am sure that you and them are much smarter than me, but sorry my mind just can't accept some of your conclusions until certain issues are made clear.

1. Your contention that you can't find a chess game that was not won by a mistake by the opponent. Is this not just the definition of a won game? In any won game you should be able to go back and see a move that led to the loss and if that move is redone correctly would eliminate the loss. If not and the loser has gone all the way back to the opening position without finding a line of play that leads to a draw or win for him (really impossible to analyze, but just theoretically speaking) then that would be proof of a forced win.

2. The most advanced computer programs will readily win most games against a human and will often win against a lesser program. This shows that winning tactics are still possible. Quote: " players know chess is a draw and play in a manner not to make mistakes and lose." Well lets say you assemble a team of chess experts and computers with the goal of never making a mistake and losing, lets call the team "The Solid Squares" and you play against another team that has the goal to try for a win at any cost, no matter what percent of games they lose. Let's call that team "Crazy Mother Effers" My guess is the Crazy Mothers will often lose, but will still get over 10% wins over the Solid Squares. No, I don't think there is anything wrong in playing not to lose, but if radical play can still produce winning strategies I don't think you can say we have reached levels of play where we can say it is a drawn game. Perhaps the rules for correspondence should be that a draw counts as a loss for both sides, then players may be motivated to play different tactics and you will have a lot less draws.

3. I understand that most endgame positions in these high level games are draws and that with best possible play the game does not go on long enough to increase a small advantage to a winning position. But here's the problem: As the post I shared states there are 20 quadrillion possible reasonable moves in the first 15 moves alone, way beyond the capabilities of any now conceivable computer or human. All you need is to show a single tree of moves that leads to a win. I don't believe you can state categorically that this is unlikely or even guess the probability that if ever solved chess is a draw. There is just too many possibilities in chess, it is not as simple as checkers.

In conclusion thinking as an elite correspondence player, sure, let's say it is a draw! But mathematically speaking in a joking way I think you are full of beans!