Ghostlady I have never seen a game where one side won even though the opponent did not make a mistake.
In trillions of games played--not one game has ever been shown where one side won without his opponent making a mistake.
uhhh...i'll show u a couple when i get a chance to look them up.
Ghostlady ha ha ha! 
I think the playing level at ICCF (and CC in general) is overestimated by Ponz, although it is undoubtedly MUCH HIGHER than these stupid engine vs engine matches which many people use as a Gospel.
Right now I have started with 3/3 at the ICCF Lockdown Open Preliminaries Section 2, and two more easy points are on their way, so I will start with 5/5.
This is very, very far from claiming that "Chess is a Draw" - the claim is in all likelihood correct, but we have not reached anywhere close to a proof yet.
You're missing the point entirely. We shouldn't look to engines just because they are better than humans at aspects of the game. We look to engines because they are objective agents and if they trend toward a draw as their rating goes up, that gives us confidence in solution to chess because they're only goal is to give themselves the best chance of winning.
[1] - FICS standard time controls - https://www.ficsgames.org/download.html
[2] - Lechenicher SchachServer - https://www.chess-server.net/en/
[3] - Engine (40 moves in 15 minutes on an Intel i7-4770k) - https://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/
It is clear that human games follow a very specific trend toward 100% draws that engines don't follow due to human biases, whatever they may be. The only way to address the solution to a perfect information game is with agents that don't succumb to biases. I would lean to a draw based on this data, but it's really interesting how slowly engines are getting there. Even the best engines win a very significant amount like 15% in stockfish 10 vs alphazero (https://www.chess.com/news/view/updated-alphazero-crushes-stockfish-in-new-1-000-game-match). That being said, ponz111 has never given a logical reason for why chess is a draw, and I'd debate him on twitch.
Later thinking about it I realized that JimDiesel might have originally posted "draw" instead of "win" and if so I did not make the mistake that I apologized for and JimDiesel was being a little shifty by not admitting he was wrong! [and changing the wording of his post]
Let me get this straight. I made a post that had a graph showing the increase in draw rate of engines, linked an article that said two engines win 15% of the time, and SAID that I think they are trending toward a draw and chess is more likely to be a draw than a win, and after all that, all my research and effort, you think that I believe the best engines only draw at 15%?
Eden, you are not telling the truth when you indicate I don't provide evidence. If you look through the more than 3000 posts you will see I have provided a lot of evidence that chess is a draw when neither side makes an error.
I have seen very little evidence so far. Of course I haven't read every single post. The only reasonably good evidence is that the draw rate increases when the rating goes up and often it is possible to point out a mistake in a decisive game. However that is not conclusive evidence. Maybe computers and correspondence players are just not good enough to find the winning moves.
PATRIOT Just for your information. Please look at post #3371 and the sentence of JimDiesel starting with "Even the best engines win" and I thought he posted"Even the best engines draw" and called him on it.
and you pointed out that in post #3371 he posted "Even the best engines win" and thus I made a mistake. But I am first to admit when I make a mistake and gave an apology in post #3374.
Later thinking about it I realized that JimDiesel might have originally posted "draw" instead of "win" and if so I did not make the mistake that I apologized for and JimDiesel was being a little shifty by not admitting he was wrong! [and changing the wording of his post]
To be sure I asked JimDiesel if he had gone back and changed the word "draw" to "win" and just did not tell what he did?
JimDiesel did not answer my question? Not only that I asked him about 7 times to answer the question and he refused to answer my question.
So it is rather evident that is exactly what JimDiesel did [change the word "draw" to the word "win"
and it was JimDiesel who made the mistake and now has avoided answering my question.!!![or admitting what he did!]
Yes, you corrected your mistake. We all make mistakes like that. We are thinking one thing, while reading another, and confuse the two. You have draw on the brain. So when you saw the word win, your mind saw the word draw. Not a big deal. The point is you figure your opinion is right, no matter what. You dont seem to be very capable of processing information that contradicts your beliefs.
according to stockfish: best play from each side will end up in a draw. if you think im lying, ask Anish Giri.
JoeLovesCoco For every day chess below super GM level White wins more than Black because of the practical advantage of the first move. But in the highest/strongest forms of chess where the players do not make mistakes--all games are drawn as the slight advantage of the first move is not enough to win vs the best competition.
This seems very hard to believe. You keep claiming that "all" games where players do not make mistakes result in draws. But as the ability of players and computers improve, the definition of mistake keeps changing. So it seems very difficult to assess what a mistake is based on what we dont know about the future.
I agree there is a slight advantage to going first in games like tic tac toe or even checkers. Although many top checker players say going first can be a disadvantage. It's pretty well known that going first in either game is no advantage at all. But at ALL levels, going first in chess is an advantage. Even the very highest levels of chess, white has the advantage. I just read that according to Moores law, the rate at which computing advances, it will take 132 years to reasonably solve chess. But that's assuming enough physical ability to compute that much.
As I said before, there have been many times in history where something was widely known to be true, until it was proven it wasn't. The result of perfectly played chess could be one of them. Time will tell.
btw @IfPatriotGames
This is white's win rate plotted against rating according to various databases.
PATRIOT The definition of "mistake" we are using is any move which changes the theoretical result of the game. Of course there can be many definitions of "mistake". Actually strong players can very often look at a game and discern such mistakes. Example in the wildly complicated game posted here where I played Black and beat a GM [here on chess.com] I know exactly where he made his 1 mistake.
Patriot the first move in either chess or checkers is a practical advantage. And the top checker players Do Not say moving first is a disadvantage. Just as the top chess players Do Not say that moving first is a disadvantage.
And it is NOT pretty much well known that going first is no advantage at all. The practical advantage means something and that is why it is well known that moving first is a practical advantage. And it is also well known that players who move first in checkers or chess do better than players who move 2nd.
I don't know where you get your ideas on this but you are simply wrong and stats prove this.
And Moores law does not really predict when [if ever] chess will be solved. It certainly will Not be solved in a mere 132 years. It may never be solved.
It is true that in history sometimes people believed things which were not true. But how you can apply this to chess--I don't know?
JimDiesel you need to know that ratings and strength of play often are NOT very correlated. Just look at my rating on chess,com where I beat many masters and experts and 1 GM as one example. [or look at my games outside of chess.com where I have a rating over 2500]
Also it is not true that engines are stronger than the best correspondence players as your chart seems to indicate. Also the best correspondence players are stronger than the best humans.
You are not understanding the real strength of the 4 groups on your chart.
Patriot you are apparently not understanding what I wrote about what I thought was my mistake [and apologized for] As it turned out it was NOT a mistake made by me.
JimDiesel you need to know that ratings and strength of play often are NOT very correlated. Just look at my rating on chess,com where I beat many masters and experts and 1 GM as one example. [or look at my games outside of chess.com where I have a rating over 2500]
Also it is not true that engines are stronger than the best correspondence players as your chart seems to indicate. Also the best correspondence players are stronger than the best humans.
You are not understanding the real strength of the 4 groups on your chart.
I never said that. You are strawmanning me. Actually, I specifically said I got the "ratings according to various databases" because correspondence chess has it's own rating system and engines ratings are estimated. These ratings couldn't even possibly be objective. Anyone logical would recognize that. We don't give FIDE ratings to chess engines by secretly entering them in OTB tournaments and having people play their moves from being fed a wire.
Patriot you are apparently not understanding what I wrote about what I thought was my mistake [and apologized for] As it turned out it was NOT a mistake made by me.
You should apologize. You derailed the conversation by intentionally (or unintentionally, it's hard to tell with stupid people) misunderstanding what I said.
I may stop following this discussion again. This is going on and on without making any progress lol.
JimDiesel I know you never said the ratings on your chart were coordinated. And I never said that you said such a thing.
But the problem is you are using such dissimilar ratings systems on your chart that the chart only gives us limited knowledge and with such dissimilar ratings posted on your chart it distracts from the point or points you are trying to make.
JimDiesel I know you never said the ratings on your chart were coordinated. And I never said that you said such a thing.
But the problem is you are using such dissimilar ratings systems on your chart that the chart only gives us limited knowledge and with such dissimilar ratings posted on your chart it distracts from the point or points you are trying to make.
This right here is why this forum is horrible. Here's the conversation summarized:
Me: I never believed stockfish vs alphazero drew 15% of their games. Here's my post. Do you really think that I thought that?
You (completely ignoring everything): Well, I think you should know the ratings aren't related.
Me: Awesome. Nice non-sequitur. Never claimed that.
You: I never said you did. I just think your chart is hard to understand.
But you still stand by this forum... even though you're capable of making these illogical leaps with every post... and complain about other people doing it. But I give up, if I have to reason with you over text another day I'll kill myself in a video game.
I may stop following this discussion again. This is going on and on without making any progress lol.
Unless there is some incredible breakthrough there isn't any way progress CAN be made. Nobody is going to know the answer for a very long time. Until then, it's just guesses.
PATRIOT it is true that nobody will know in the sense of chess being solved. You mention a very long time and my guess is chess will not be solved ever by humans?
But chess being solved is not the question for this forum. It is simply a true or false question?
People can know something without requiring a math solve. The top checker players knew checkers was a draw way before checkers was math solved.
Also there are billions of things that are true without anyone knowing they are true.
It is true that chess is a draw with best play and that truth does not require everyone or even most people believing it is true.
ohh, ok. i thought it was just the best possible, thanks