Chess is a draw with best play from both sides. That's why higher rated players tend to draw more.
That's true. It's also true that higher rated players tend to win with white more. The higher the rating, the higher white win rate.
Incidentally, Elroch likes talking down to people, which irritates me, because he makes logical errors. He also makes incorrect propositions, such as "I do not make logical errors". Here's a rather daft and very recent example. He just wrote this about my thoughts on the subject:
<<<<Your belief has the same status as saying "there might be a green Yeti somewhere we have not looked". I can't disprove this, but I am confident it is false. I am more confident there is no computationally undemanding solution of chess.>>>>
There's something in psychology called "projecting". It's rather amusing that this applies more, much more, to the writer than to the writer's target.
Obviously, the green yeti is the hidden win among the drawing lines. It is not the mathematical solution to chess, which I am sure is possible but which is not the subject of this thread. He doesn't even see that and such is the standard of discussion here.
All that is way above me. But I know one thing for sure, there is a very large segment of the population that is more influenced not by what you say, but how you say it.
If someone is sure of something, and can even prove it, that makes almost no difference if he presents it in a way that is unappealing. So many people here forget that we are all human.
PATRIOT A QUESTION FOR YOU? SUPPOSE HIGH LEVEL CHESS GOT TO THE POINT
THAT ON AVERAGE WHITE WINS TWICE AND BLACK WINS ONCE OUT OF A 1000 GAMES. WOULD YOU THEN SAY "WHITE WINS TWICE AS MUCH AS BLACK?" 
PATRIOT A QUESTION FOR YOU? SUPPOSE HIGH LEVEL CHESS GOT TO THE POINT
THAT ON AVERAGE WHITE WINS TWICE AND BLACK WINS ONCE OUT OF A 1000 GAMES. WOULD YOU THEN SAY "WHITE WINS TWICE AS MUCH AS BLACK?"
If all the rest are draws, yes.
Even in correspondence chess black wins sometimes. Looking back at the last few years of correspondence games it's surprising how many games are won, and not draws.
I SET A RECORD IN CORRESPONDENCE CHESS WHICH WILL NEVER BE BROKEN OR EVEN TIED. THE RECORD WAS WITH PLAYING BLACK IN THE FINAL ROUND OF THE UNITED STATES CORRESPONDENCE CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP.
AM ONLY PERSON IN HISTORY TO WIN ALL HIS GAMES WITH BLACK IN THE FINALS OF A USA CORRESPONDENCE CHAMPIONSHIP. 7 GAMES --ALL 7 WINS.
mar you are talking about a strong entity which includes top engines and more and you ask how it compares to top engines, ?? it obviously has some things top engines do not have. It cannot be worse to top engines and I have explained how it might be better.
however i have said the top engines may be catching up.
Again not what I asked, Ponz.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The question is has anybody actually tried any?
So, again, a simple question. Do you know of any games/matches between correspondence players and "unaided" computers?
A "yes", "no", "don't know" answer was principally what I was looking for, but if "yes" also where could we see the results.
It's not clear just from the list you gave in #8388 that the extras would give any advantage at all.
In a game either both sides or neither side would have EGTB access.
The access to a games database for example could be a disadvantage if the games in the database were generally played by weaker players than the opponent engine.
Similarly access to books. The EGTBs threw up swathes of errors in previous endgame analysis, which is the area where books are most likely to be accurate. Would an opponent computer "know" better than the books in play?
Would a single person tinkering with the software in his engines outperform the team of programmers that produced the opponent engine. You claim to be "not computer savy" but it didn't appear to put you at much of a disadvantage against those who were.
As for better opening books, maybe true against a current engine.
From a computing point of view analysing the position from a few ply into the game is essentially as intractable as analysing it from the opening position unless the few ply produce a position where there is either a short forced mate or short forced dead positions for both sides. This seems unlikely after the moves you mentioned.
Running the analysis on a current supercomputer day and night for centuries wouldn't cut much ice for most such positions.
MAR YOU REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT--LOOK AT YOUR LAST SENTENCE FOR EXAMPLE.
YOUR PARAGRAPHS ARE FULL OF STUPID ASSUMPTIONS. I CANNOT DEAL WITH YOU AS YOUR KNOWLELDGE OF CHESS IS TOO LOW.
No side will ever play perfectly.
until every possible chess position has been mapped
MAR YOU REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT--LOOK AT YOUR LAST SENTENCE FOR EXAMPLE.
YOUR PARAGRAPHS ARE FULL OF STUPID ASSUMPTIONS. I CANNOT DEAL WITH YOU AS YOUR KNOWLELDGE OF CHESS IS TOO LOW.
Was that a "yes", "no" or "don't know"?
MAR YOU REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT--LOOK AT YOUR LAST SENTENCE FOR EXAMPLE.
YOUR PARAGRAPHS ARE FULL OF STUPID ASSUMPTIONS. I CANNOT DEAL WITH YOU AS YOUR KNOWLELDGE OF CHESS IS TOO LOW.
Was that a "yes", "no" or "don't know"?
none of the above
MAR YOU REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT--LOOK AT YOUR LAST SENTENCE FOR EXAMPLE.
YOUR PARAGRAPHS ARE FULL OF STUPID ASSUMPTIONS. I CANNOT DEAL WITH YOU AS YOUR KNOWLELDGE OF CHESS IS TOO LOW.
Was that a "yes", "no" or "don't know"?
none of the above
That's what I thought too, but with my low knowledge of chess I wasn't too sure.
IT IS NOT JUST YOUR LOW KNOWLEDGE OF CHESS--IT IS YOUR LOW KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT MAKES SENSE AND WHAT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.
Incidentally, Elroch likes talking down to people, which irritates me, because he makes logical errors. He also makes incorrect propositions, such as "I do not make logical errors". Here's a rather daft and very recent example. He just wrote this about my thoughts on the subject:
<<<<Your belief has the same status as saying "there might be a green Yeti somewhere we have not looked". I can't disprove this, but I am confident it is false. I am more confident there is no computationally undemanding solution of chess.>>>>
There's something in psychology called "projecting". It's rather amusing that this applies more, much more, to the writer than to the writer's target.
Obviously, the green yeti is the hidden win among the drawing lines. It is not the mathematical solution to chess, which I am sure is possible but which is not the subject of this thread. He doesn't even see that and such is the standard of discussion here.
The green yeti is not a bad analogy for either.
My mathematical intuition and experience and my understanding of the arbitrary combinatorial nature of chess makes it clear that it is very unlikely (and I mean VERY) that there is proof of the result of chess of a practical size.
Ponz's experience as a past US correspondence chess champion makes him rightly very confident that the result of chess is a draw (but not justifiably certain).
As you think it is plausible that someone could find a proof of chess, perhaps you could quantify how likely you think it is and we could set up some sort of financial bet on whether this happens in some specified period?
The idea of mathematical representation of chess is not central to the discussion. Most contributors have preferred the idea of "complete analysis of chess". There are a couple of problems with that. Firstly, a complete analysis wouldn't, itself, be a proof of anything, since it would have to be rigorously proven that it really was a complete analysis. I've mentioned it before but no-one has picked up on it.
Be fair - I've picked up on it and agreed. But from a common sense viewpoint we can pretty much forget it. A rigorous proof could automatically be produced from an EGTB and it's children. (It would be a very boring proof).
Also I've pointed out something else that is obvious to me .... that the nature of a proof that chess is a draw must be methodologically different from a proof in the case that chess is a win. But this has been met by blank incomprehension, except in the cases of a couple of people who were "just visiting" and who had less patience than I seem to have but who accepted the truth of that. They must have been quite intelligent.
Be fair again - I'm not just visiting and I've agreed that with certain approaches (brute force tree searches either forward or backward) there is a difference in the nature of the proofs. It's just that I pointed out that in this case you had it *rse about tit which was likely to be easiest.
As for other approaches, they were probably met by blank incomprehension because you didn't include any valid reasoning, only the obviously invalid reasoning in your paragraph below.
The proofs must be different in nature and that is confirmed when we consider the differences between a forced win, which may well be a unique line, and the myriads of drawing lines that will exist if chess is a draw.
Forced wins are generally not unique lines. For example, how many different winning moves does White usually have in a winning KBNK position? Neither are there necessarily myriads of drawing lines in drawn positions. How many drawing moves does Black usually have in a drawing position in the same endgame?
Since you post absolutely nothing that makes any distinction between the situation in a bishop and knight endgame and a situation with the starting material your argument is clearly nonsensical.
You have to understand that people are failing to understand this argument not because their IQ is a couple of hundred points below yours. They're failing to understand it because it's crap. You're not meant to understand crap.
Is there any chance you could stop posting it every few pages?
IT IS NOT JUST YOUR LOW KNOWLEDGE OF CHESS--IT IS YOUR LOW KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT MAKES SENSE AND WHAT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.
Is it a "yes", "no" or "don't know" this time?
MAR
JUST TO GIVE ONE EXAMPLE YOUR QUESTION "DO YOU KNOW OF ANY GAMES/MATCHES BETWEEN CORRESPONDENCE PLAYERS AND "UNAIDED" COMPUTERS?"
1. WE ARE DEALING WITH TOP CORRESPONDENCED PLAYERS--NOT JUST CORRESPONDENCE PLAYERS
2. THERE IS NO REASON FOR A PERSON WHO HAS USE OF UNAIDED COMPUTERS TO PLAY A MATCH VS AN UNAIDED COMPUTER.
3. WHAT WOULD IT PROVE IF THIS MATCH WERE TO HAPPEN?
4. THE AIDS ARE SOMETIMES RELEVANT TO A MATCH AND SOMETIMES NOT RELEVANT. FOR EXAMPLE A WHOLE MATCH COULD BE PLAYED WITHOUT THE NEED OF TABLE BASES
5. YOU SEEM TO THINK HAVING EXTRA ABILITIES IS SOMEHOW DETRIMENTAL?
A PRO TENNIS PLAYER HAS MANY TENNIS RACQUETS NOT JUST ONE. HE/SHE HAS MANY HELPS-NOT JUST HIS PLAYING ABILITY.
depends what yhou mean by "exhaustic proof".
This can be defined as a proof that can be verified by a formal proof-checking computer program. As an analogy, a lot of mathematical knowledge can be codified in a way that allows a computer program to check the proofs are valid. Present knowledge of chess does not provide a proof that can be checked. Rather it provides partial information (such as tablebases) and a large quantity of evidence suitable for inductive reasoning.
question? Are there things you believe wikthout exhaustic proof?
It's worth observing that there is a huge difference between "believing" and being certain of. There are a huge number of things I believe but which I am aware might just possibly be false. Therefore I am not completely certain of them. While it is convenient to ignore the lack of certainty, it is often inappropriate to do so.
Ponz, the distinction which does not come naturally to you is that between having a very high degree of confidence in something and being certain of it. This distinction is very clear mathematically but not so clear intuitively.
Eg I believe I will not be hit by a meteorite today. However, it is obvious to me that certainty would be inappropriate. Meteorites do hit the Earth and there is a non-zero probability that one will hit where I am today. This probability is very small but non-zero. It would be epistemiologically inappropriate for me to be certain I will not be hit by a meteorite today.
Suppose you have an urn containing coloured beads and you reach in and randomly take out a billion white beads one after the other (this would take several decades full time). You can be justifiably confident the next bead you take will be white. But you cannot be certain the next bead will be white.
Chess has structure that allows more complex inductive reasoning, but inductive reasoning can never reach justifiable certainty, any more than it can for drawing beads from an urn. The only form of reasoning that could reach certainty about chess is deductive reasoning, such as that used to prove the result of checkers. [The rather dull analog for the urn would be to check all the beads rather than just a sample).
depends what yhou mean by "exhaustic proof".
question? Are there thin gs you b elieve wikthout exhaustic proof?
Yes, I believe that chess is a draw with best play, but acknowledge that that statement is not yet proven.