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

@chiaro :

Ok I didn't get that.

This thread is most likely going to die anyway, since most people, for various reasons, are discouraged to argue here. It was an interesting thread though.

ponz I already explained several times (and george did it aswell) that we do not have "hundreds of game that have no errors and end up in a draw". We are unable to tell in great number of positions (inculding the starting position) if a move is or not a mistake. If you think you can seriously convince anyone that you know the list of first moves that are not mistakes, you should publish a paper because the whole math community is waiting for that answer.

I'm not trying to pick rare games or whatever. What I am saying is that as long as there are more than 7 pieces on the board, our means of analysis (human + engines) are by nature unable to make the distinction between perfect play and good practical play. We cannot rely on them, engines are not programmed to find perfect moves and humans are way too limited to probably understand why a perfect move is a perfect move in a lot of situations (including, again, very simplified positions like Q+P vs Q endgames).

Don't expect to get more answers from me, for reasons we both know. I came back essentialy to answer chiaro's post, which looked like an invitation for a constructive debate. Turns out he wasn't believing what he said, so I guess I'm out again.

This has been a fascinating debate. Filled with all sorts of emotions, opinions, theories, etc. I hope it doesn't end....

Nevertheless, Centaur chess is heuristic.

Philidor predicted that the King's Gambit and this position were draws:

As for the King's Gambit this is a forced win for black as discovered by Bobby Fischer, though many GMs throughout the early 20th century held the gambit in contempt, such as Capablanca:

Yes, Philador made a mistake.  But your contention is that the King's Gambit is busted because Fischer said it was busted?

So you are showing that players can make mistakes?  

Centaur Chess has an element of heuristics in it but it is much more than that. That is why it is better than just heuristics.

I think there is confusion about finding perfect moves in a possible perfect game. I may be wrong but believe some think that there is only one perfect move in a position? this is not true at all. Most opening positions have several moves which will not change the eventual outcome of a game.  To give an example. 1. e4  now all of these moves will not change the outcome of the game.  1. ...e5   1. ...c5  1. ...c6

Thus it is rather easy to find examples of perfect games as we have defined it here.  Remember it takes at least a pawn advantage to change the eventual outcome of a game. 

Trying to solve chess seems too ambitious with today's technology, but certain openings have been refuted to either a loss for one side or a draw.  The most obvious places to look for refutations are gambits: 1.e4,c5 2.b4,cxb4 3.a3,d5 for example is at the very least a headache for white. 

1.e4,c5 2.f4,d5 I think might be refuted to a draw but aren't 100% on it. 

The term "refuted" has several different meanings depending on the person using it. There is no consensus..

Centaur Chess is getting to the point that Black or White can draw vs any opening.

I would be 99% sure solved chess is a draw. Tic tac toe is a draw and the advantage of first move is much higher. Checkers has been solved and is also a draw with perfect play.

Checkers, BTW doesn't even need perfect play to be a forced draw:

http://chinook.cs.ualberta.ca/users/chinook/index.html

This is likely fruitless but hope springs eternal..

It is not enough to continually claim this as evidence of anything.  There is no argument attached to this stylized fact that you repeatedly post on this thread.  I'd like to come up with an example argument for you but the are all so dumb, I just can't do it.  But think about what this fact might mean - Anand armed with Houdini draws Topalov armed with Houdini 100% of the time.  Let's just say that we completely accept that as fact (I wouldn't but am willing to go with it).  Does that mean anything about the ultimate state of chess?  It means:

a) Houdini has made it so that neither of these great players make human tactical errors.

b) Without these tactical errors neither of them can gain enough advantage to win ever.

From that you can probably conclude that super-GM wins are due to tactical errors that machines wouldn't make.  That's not a million miles close to being able to show that chess is ultimately a draw.  It doesn't even address the question.

It is hard to get around problems like:

a) The state of chess knowledge for both Topalov and Anand is about the same since the have access to the same public body of knowledge.

b) There is no way at all of knowing how much this knowledge will change going forward.  Capablanca and Fischer both felt that the state of knowledge was nearly complete toward the ends of their career.  Both were deeply insightful and both were wrong.

c) Comparing the tactical abilities of the same engine is useless.  If they were armed with different engines, the claim about centaur chess always being a draw is looking ridiculous. 

d) I can take any chess engine run by either of these guys and throw more money than either of them has at the engine and make it instantly better.  If Anand wants to play me at centaur chess, I would give him draw odds.  I would simply go outspend Anand on my chess computer simply so I could beat the world champion (the ego value of that to me is worth way more than it would be to Anand and he is paid like a chessplayer).  How we can think that centaur chess is a draw when we are certain Anand would come back afterwards and say it wasn't fair isn't clear at all.

Ponz should try hard to address all that.  Claiming that this is an attack on you or repeating silly stuff like "You don't think centaur chess is a draw?" is not helpful.  Try hard to make an argument about why centaur chess has something to do with proving chess is a draw.  You should try to address at least some of the points above (which may mean that you give some reason to believe they aren't true). 

Not the Latvian Gambit or Englund Gambit, those are forced wins for white.  I think you mean draw vs. any reasonable opening.  Have to agree there.   

Oh ... and more importantly... Ponz should address this:

"ponz I already explained several times (and george did it aswell) that we do not have "hundreds of game that have no errors and end up in a draw". We are unable to tell in great number of positions (inculding the starting position) if a move is or not a mistake. If you think you can seriously convince anyone that you know the list of first moves that are not mistakes, you should publish a paper because the whole math community is waiting for that answer."

I don't know if Ponz doesn't understand that or what the problem is.  It seems like the response is always the non-response of something like "We know what mistakes are in many settings".  Maybe Tronchenblais's point needs to be explained more slowly? 

I didn't know the number 40 but I wasn't commenting o the number of your posts.  Do you think any of them added anything to the discussion or said anything interesting or intelligent?  Please point it out.

For reference, I think there were many intelligent and thoughtful posts on this thread.

people trying to solve chess is like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaLrN4JjmTU are minds use 10% of its potentol when wee will use 100%

answer this but

krammnik and adams proved in a game that this will end in a draw

Actually, while a few on this forum cannot tell if such moves as 1. d4  or 1. e4 or 1.c4 are a mistake or not. Most strong players know that these moves are not a mistake.  If you get bogged down in "Oh, I cannot tell if 1. e4 is a mistake?" Then, you simply do not have enough chess understanding to know 1. e4 is not a mistake.

If someone cannot be convinced that 1. e4 is not a mistake there is not much that anyone can say chesswise to convince him of other things related to chess.

There are some who completely discount what has been learned about chess in the last few hundred years.  Trying to convince them of anything related to chess is almost impossible.

That completely misses the point.  1.e4 is probably not a mistake (despite what Hans Berliner thinks) but Socrates says "How do you know it's not?".  Your answer would make Socrates contemptuous.

You didn't even present an argument but some kind of generic ad hominem so there is not much to respond to there.  Try again.

I do not have to convince strong players that certain opening moves are not a mistake and do not need to write a paper on this subject. The strong players already know certain opening moves are not a mistake. 

You keep repeating the world "mistake" and its definition "a move that doesn't change the outcome of the game". Unfortunately, I think you still haven't understood the meaning of the definition.

If 1.e4 is not a mistake, then the position before 1.e4 (the initial position) and the position after it are of the same nature. That is, if chess is a draw (i.e. the initial position is a draw), the position after e4 is a draw. Similarily, if chess is a win and e4 is not a mistake, the position after e4 is a win as well.

Now, given that nobody knows the outcome of the initial position, and that nobody knows the outcome of the position reached after 1.e4, I would like you to convince that you know they are the same.

Proving that 1.e4 is not a mistake is probably as hard as solving chess. I don't care that GM use it, and I'll continue playing it every game I play, because I can't play perfect anyway and GMs can't play perfect either. You should understand that we are not talking about being very good at chess, or the best human in the world. Perfect play is immensely harder than this, and is very likely out of human's reach. Engines probably won't be able to play perfect for a long amount of time (in your version, the sun explodes before it happens).

The second part of the post is not that important. What is very important to understand is that we do not know if 1.e4 is perfect. Practically speaking, it's a sound move, but in terms of game theory (which is the only thing that matters when talking about perfect play) we have no clue.

The "I am right because other people not here would surely agree with me" is among the lamest possible arguments (actually it isn't even an argument - it's just nothing).  In fact, I don't even think that well-educated players would agree with you.   A strong player like Botvinnik (reasonably well-schooled in mathematics) would surely agree with Trochenblais and say something like "Eh..I play e4 because I like the practical  chances in the game following e4 not because of any belief that it is a perfect move". 

Okay.