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

Ponz has said in the past that perfect games are played all the time.  Then he uses a Ruy Lopez opening where both players agree to a draw at move 5-6 as an example.  He has also claimed in the past to be capable of personally judging whether a chess game is "perfect" or not.

It's been going on since 2013...it's not going away .

Edit:  I may add examples if i run into them...here's one:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/true-or-false-chess-is-a-draw-with-best-play-from-both-sides?page=24#comment-15359194

Your argument is only slightly less scientific than Ponz's .

Well your faith is particularly strong. Now I do agree that you have provided evidence. That's because I believe evidence is suggestion, not fact. You have provided evidence (suggestions) that chess is a draw. I agree with your evidence, I just dont agree with your conclusion. You believe your suggestion is PROOF chess is a draw. I dont think you have provided any proof because there are LOTS of ways you could be wrong. Only the future will know if you are right or not. Right now nobody can say for sure. It all comes down to faith. 

TBH, TCEC uses openings especially made to reduce draw rates.

True. Now, end this discussion and move on. Now!

Pandering to the human audience for extra excitement does not really diminish the fact that engines can still clobber each other, and do.

If WCC matches were all Berlin games and Sicilians, there would tend to be more draws in the those matches, too.  Oh wait...

Humans and engines are both imperfect chess players...nevertheless, they will both tend to play what wins by their current level of understanding.  This is in no way a proof that they have determined that their chosen lines are perfect play, or "best play".  They are simply currently "best by test", to borrow from Fischer.

It does diminish the relevance of drawing statistics in chess engine tournaments because by design, they have artificially low draw rates. True, chess engines still clobber weaker ones but that's irrelevant to the point I want to make.

In another note, to reduce draw rates the openings have to be more and more one-sided getting up to +1 evaluations from the participating engines right out of the book in many superfinal lines.

It's not just stronger chess engines clobbering weaker.  Some seasons an engine tweak will dominate, which just shows that there is plenty of room left for engines to improve.  I find it amazing that in the age of machine learning engines people still think super GMs and engines have exhausted the game and we are only left with a future of boring draws.  It's clearly not the case.

The fact that AlphaZero shocked so many GMs with its play is just a sign that it was the GMs and engines getting stale, not the game.  And the forced win vs. forced draw issue is not getting stale, either.

btickler   Of course BOTH humans and chess engines continue to improve. And while these two improve there are more and more draws.

You seem to like to ignore where the best/strongest chess is played. This is the combination of humans and machines plus data bases plus other helps at the highest levels of current correspondence chess.

At this very highest level of chess we now have the very best playing against each other resulting in  100% draws.

You seem to like to ignore that certain very good openings such as the Ruy Lopez have been analyzed to a draw.  You try to ignore a lot of evidenced that chess is a draw.

Sure some GMs were amazed at the very nice play of Alpha Zero.  But so what? as chess engines become stronger the trend will continue--when a very strong chess plays an equal--the trend will continue--there will be more and more draws. 

I notice human programmers sometimes get in the way.  For instance the programmers preset what two engines play against each other.  Here is an example  each engine  had to play the black side of this variation   1. e4    d5  2. exd5   Qxd5  3. Nc3   Qd6. Having written a book on the Center Counter I knew the  line with  Qd6 was very poor for Black. And sure enough this resulted in  2 loses for Black.

I do not think Super Computers have exhausted the game of chess at all.  It is fun and interesting to watch them play. Just because chess is a draw with best play does not mean chess for 99.99% of the players will result that they give up play? The only players who might give up play are correspondence players at the very highest levels?

Prometheus   You are correct that to reduce draw rates the openings have to be more and more one sided.  This is one more piece of evidence that chess is a draw with best play!

Draw of course.

Where do I seem to like to ignore that engine + (human + database) is stronger than engine alone?  I'll be waiting...

It's not new "evidence", you've been mentioning that for years.  It falls short, like all your other "indicators" that don't actually add up to your claim.

If an engine dominates others then by definition the other ones are weaker -.-

On another note, I never said anything about engines not being able to get stronger.

That's crap and you know it.  When Stockfish and Komodo have traded off titles, it's because they found slight improvements overall that seemed to work well against the other (of course, the developers obviously test heavily against their main rivals).  It usually did not allow them to particularly crush the field any more or less than other seasons.  This type of incremental leapfrogging is an indicator of "elbow room" in the improvement space, but the engine that gets tweaked is not leaps and bounds better than it's previous incarnation, nor its perennial competitors.

I am on the 200th page

true

btickler   read again please  I never said you like to ignore that humans plus engines and other help are stronger than humans alone.  

and

You seem to like to ignore where the best/strongest chess is played. This is the combination of humans and machines plus data bases plus other helps at the highest levels of current correspondence chess.