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

Deflection.  Followed by dismissal.  You're a sock puppet with time to burn.  Yawn.

george jetson there were two misquotes not one.  Really hard to discuss with you if you are going to misquote me and then use the misquote in your argument.

First please look where I said there were two misquotes and correct.

Then we can go on and I can answer your question or respond to your statements.

If I say something and you turn it around to something I did not say it is very hard to debate you.  Please check if you misquoted me or not do not just say you are sorry IF you misquoted.

I think you are so much into your viewpoint that you do not "hear" what I am saying and thus two misquotes.

Ponz, is your belief that although computers will get much better at chess in the next 40 years, that centaurs will not get much better? 

grayons

Centaurs are humans with the aid of computers. So if computers get better so will Centaurs.   The combination of humans and chess engines together are stronger than just chess engines.  This is why for example playing 1. e4 is almost a wasted White in some levels of Centaur Chess as they know to steer the game into the Petroff Defense.

Right now a Centaur player can evaluate almot any position as winning or losing or drawish.

Just recently I got the free version of stockfish which is said to be as strong as houdini.  I am currently experiencing a kind of Centaur Chess nyself as I have challenged several strong players to challenge games where I take the black side of the Ponziani. unrated games with chess engines allowed and encouraged.  This is quite unusual as it is well known I am an advocate for the Ponziani Opening. 

george jetson there is a difference between "we are at the limits right now" which I did not say and "I think they will get better in 40 years but not so much better that they could beat today's centaur players consistently"

Which was my quote. Do you not see the difference between what you were trying to make me say and what I actually said????  What you are doing is to misquote me and then make an argument from the misquote.

This is the classic strawman tactic.  Misquote or misrepresent what someone says and then knock down the misquote.

And you will not even acknowledge your misquote.

Also I did not say computing power will not advance.  This is another strawman argument where you use your misquote and knock it down.

I  will not be alive in 20 years.  Also I do not have 100K to bet. So you think your son would win ten in a row?

But you are conveniently trying to change the subject about misquotes.

You mentioned one misquote but conveniently did not mention the other.

And there is more than a hair of a difference between your one misquote and what I actually said.

Better not misquote me or I will call you on it.  

ponz I told you the exact same thing yesterday but :

Instead of repeating somebody misquoted you why don't you just explain what you mean ?

Apparently, the reason why today's centaurs will not be consistently beaten by tomorow's engines has nothing to do, in your eyes, with computational power coming to a limit.

So what is the reason? I think this is the fundamental point where people disagree in this thread. We should be discussing that rather than who is misquoting who.

Tronchenbiais   I think todays Centaurs are getting closer to games without errors.  They are not there yet and when I say "errors" I mean games where neither makes a move which would change the outcome of the game.

I know computuational power will go up.  Centaur Chess is really just getting started. When this matures [my guess is about 10 years] Centaurs will practically be unbeatable. [the best Centaurs with the best engines.]

To give an anology   The game of checkers was always thought to be a draw but this was not proven until recently.  However the best checker players could hardly ever be beaten long before the game was solved.

I think in 10 or so years Centaur Chess will have matured and be so good that they could draw against any future chess engine. 

So far, all I've read by George and Tronchen is that since there is no absolute proof one way or another, then the discussion is completely open and there is no way we can make intelligent statements about the direction the research has taken us so far. 

If you were to believe these two, there is an equal chance of discovering that Black wins by force as there is discovering that White wins by force. 

Let that sink in for a minute. They are trying to obscure this point with references to mathematical conjectures that have varying degrees of support by the specialists of the field. 

In chess, grandmasters are the specialists in the field. They are unanimous that chess is a theoretical draw. This is not the same as the Reimann hypothesis, where most specialists are non-committal and some disagree with the hypothesis. 

But note, even in the field of unproven mathematical hypotheses/conjectures, specialists do take sides and do state whether they believe such a theory is likely to be true. In the case of chess, the specialists who have expressed an opinion have stated that chess is a draw with perfect play. 

Again, George and Tronchon's perspective is so contrarian that their argument allows equal chances for Black to win from the starting position. I find such a position to be ridiculous.

The way I understand it is what I call the "math guys' look at the fact that there have only been 100 billion games played and maybe a million or so games played by the very top players--that all  their experience n and chess knowledge means nothing zero kaput because 100 billion or 1 million is a very small number compared to the number of possible games. I do not buy this, I think their experience and knowledge means a lot.

The earth is a very small place compared to the whole universe--very small. However there is a lot of "meaning" and "knowledge" which comes out of that place.

I also understand their argument is that chess players and especially chess engines have gotten very much better over time and they will get even better. But how does that address the question is chess a draw? I believe they think sometime in the future some chess engine and/or table base will find the magic way to the solution of the question.  They also seem to say that there may only be one path and many or most opening moves might be bad or can be beat?  If you know a lot about chess you will know this is not going to happen. No chess engine is going to say 1. e4 is a bad move because it leads to a loss game.

Now please correct me if I am wrong but I think their argument is chess in math undetermind and thus it is silly to speculate on if chess a draw in reality.  checkers was math undertermined for many years but yet the best players knew it was a draw. 

The math guys go on and on how grandmasters could not evaluate a rather obscure position or positions but so what?  What is the point?  I think they are trying to  downgrade the knowledge and abilities of grandmaster is why they bring up this rare situation.

Correst me if I am wrong on some of this?  I am trying to understand you "math guys"

Wrong. Jetson said he thought a draw was more likely and that he would be very surprised if it was a win for Black. Only a mathematically ignorant person could believe not having proof means all possibilities are equally plausible.

Grandmasters are specialists at playing chess. Experts in combinatorial game-theory would be the relevant experts to consult if you want to make an appeal to authority. Grandmasters are no more the experts when it comes to game theory and mathematical proofs (which is what we are talking about here when we discuss it being SOLVED [edit: or playing a "perfect game" or a "game without errors"]) than Nascar drivers (rather than scientists and engineers) would be the experts in considering the aerodynamic tradeoffs of alternate racecar designs.

But we are not talking about chess being solved. As we know there are so many possible chess games that chess will never be "solved"

We are talking about if, in fact, chess is a draw, when played with no errors. Chess does not have to be "solved' to answer that question.

We are not going to wait until long after the sun explodes to "solve" chess.

However, from out knowledge of chess and from all the evidence pointing one way--Chess is a draw when both sides play without error. 

There is a difference between chess being solved and what is factually true about chess.  And, like it or not, chess is a draw when played without error.

It does not matter that to some it is undetermined if chess is a draw that is their problem. For sure if they had more of an understanding of chess, they would know chess is a draw. They also would not make silly statement such as maybe 1. e4 is a mistake which loses.  Or maybe there is only one way or series of moves to show chess is whatever it is.

It is silly to say that grandmasters, with the help of chess engines cannot evaluate positions very well because a very few positions have been found which can be evaluated but with the help of a table base.

It is silly to say that I do not know what I am talking about because I was not a math major.

It is also disengenous to misquote me when arguing against something I said.

Well I'm glad you cleared that up! Chess is far from solved. Yes there is ample enough evidence to say that with perfect play Chess is a draw. Looking at the Grand Prix games, I think one of the reasons is repetition of moves.

Ok.

It is becoming increasingly hard to argue against you because you don't even listen to our arguments and every once in a while you make this kind of post to point out we just argue the way we do because we are basically stupid.

It is up to you to think that. What I conclude from that is that we will never have a constructive discussion. You are just going to let us write pages of what we think and then wipe it all with a "anybody who thinks that is silly".

As I said many times, you are free to think what you want. It also happens that you are free not to listen to the others. In that case however, I begin to wonder why you've opened a thread called "true or false, (...)" if you are going to call stupid anyone that argue for something else than true ...

I did not call anyone "stupid" though I have been called "stupid" a few times.

I also did not call anyone "silly"  I said "It is silly to say that I do not know what I am talking about because I was not a math major"

Also the other "silly" did not say any person was "silly"  It said a concept was silly.  

I have been told that I never attended college, that I am stupid, and that a grade school child could beat me in a math desertion. 

And because I say a couple of ideas are silly that is not the same as what happened to me.

I do have a question:  A lot of people are talking about "heuristics" without defining "heuristics"  That word can have several meanings.

Please define it as used here.

I am glad this forum reopened. Hopefully a definition of "heuristics"

Thank you for getting the thread reopened.

You are welcome.  Now please a definition of "heuristics" the way it is being used here.

I also had some other questions which never got answered?

Wikipedia has a nice summary of what is meant by heuristics in this context:

Heuristic (/hjʉˈrɪstɨk/; Greek: "Εὑρίσκω", "find" or "discover") refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery that give a solution which is not guaranteed to be optimal. Where the exhaustive search is impractical, heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution via mental shortcuts to ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples of this method include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, stereotyping, or common sense.

In more precise terms, heuristics are strategies using readily accessible, though loosely applicable, information to control problem solving in human beings and machines.

sapientdust    thanks much.  

I completely agree with Tronchenblais here.  George, Tronchen, jaaas all tried to bring up the complexities of this problem.  In return, they got

"If you were to believe these two, there is an equal chance of discovering that Black wins by force as there is discovering that White wins by force. "

and various levels of bans for trying to discuss the problem.  George's posts have disappeared.  This thread now includes little about tablebases or limitations of heuristic based chess.  Apparently, ponz was arguing for page after page about posts using the word "heuristic" and just now decided to ask what that word meant.  I would be very frustrated arguing with someone when they were using words I didn't understand as well.  I do not understand sitting in front of a computer and not understanding a vocabulary word unless the explanation of that word was very far above me.  Heuristic is a pretty easy word.

It seems that the only conclusion allowed on this thread is "Chess is a draw.  This is not a mathematical problem except that anybody who claims it is can only solve it using a 32 piece tablebase which is ludicrous."

This thread moved about 4 times toward an intelligent and interesting conversation and each time was chopped off.