I know that chess cannot be solved. I have given my evidence that chess is a draw. That is all I need to do. I do not see anyone giving any evidence that chess is a win for either side.
Those who say that a current game cannot be analyzed correctly by humans using strong chess engines are wrong. I think, they just do not have enough chess knowledge to know this can be done. [and has been done]
"the 32 piece tablebase is a vehicle that might circumscribe the math (absolute) proof that chess is a draw. IF such a proof has been found it would contain a complete list of all possible chess games, and a selection of those can be just plugged in to that (hypothetical) 32 piece tablebase."
None of that is true and simply means that you do not know what a tablebase is. The point is that it is not even clear that having a tablebase is necessary to asnwer the question. This has been discussed again and again on this thread, by people who have all given up, been booted etc. A table base is not close to a list of possible games.
"
You couldn't have stated better that you (deliberately) ignore any other proof than the math-absolute proof (which then must contain a complete list of all games)."
Silly - a proof of the question given here in the complete axiomatized system of chess is a math proof. Caling something else "proof" means you simply don't understand very fundamental logic.
"
Those who say that a current game cannot be analyzed correctly by humans using strong chess engines are wrong."
This statement is obviously incorrect as all the educated people on the forum have pointed out again and again and again with all the reasons it is incorrect. It is deeply too bad that after all this discussion Ponz didn't get it.
There was a better life out there for you Ponz. Your dogmatism has led you into an inability to learn which has no doubt deeply damaged your life. Further, you are missing many beautiful things about chess. I really tried as did many others who know vastly more about how to think about this problem than you.
But I said, I am out, I dont discuss anymore.
Sorry, I don't believe you.
We know that playing with heuristics (i.e. experience based methods) fails to achieve perfect play in some situations, so we should be very carefull when using experience-based "evidence" (like grandmaster games or centaur chess) to conclude chess is a draw.
Can't we all agree on this, at least?
I know that chess cannot be solved. I have given my evidence that chess is a draw. That is all I need to do. I do not see anyone giving any evidence that chess is a win for either side.
Is that what you were hoping for when you posted #1? Did you think there might be such evidence?
Those who say that a current game cannot be analyzed correctly by humans using strong chess engines are wrong. I think, they just do not have enough chess knowledge to know this can be done. [and has been done]
This is touches the nub of the problem.
Is it true that there are some endgame positions that can't be analyzed correctly by humans using strong chess engines and will give a different assessment from tablebases? If it is true, can we extend the argument to apply to positions from earlier and earlier in the game, or is there some cutoff where even having sufficiently large tablebases would fail (but centaurs succeed)? Or are you saying that the positions for which tablebases show an 'unexpected' win never apply to real games?
chairsocuro62
I will repeat, humans, including myself, are quite capable of analyzing positions and current games using a strong chess engine. Sure way back then Philidor made a mistake. Sure there are very rare positions which humans alone coluld not analyze correctly but I am saying when the humans finally did get help the positions were correctly analyzed.
I know, some are very impressed when someone gives an example of a human making a mistake.
"Oh! Wow! this human missed a mate in 72! This proves humans cannot be trusted to correctly evaluate positions and games!"
Actually this misses the point that humans with the aid of chess engines or table bases CAN evaluate positions and games."
"One should not buy a house in Florida." "How do i know this?" "Because a sink hole opened up under a house and it killed the resident."
Chess and your insults have not deeply damaged my life. Chess is one of my great hobbies. [anyone in chess.com care to challenge me to a game of money bridge?]
Actually this misses the point that humans with the aid of chess engines or table bases CAN evaluate positions and games."
Most of the time, sure - but 100% reliably?
GM opinion + Centaur experience gives "chess is likely a draw."
Universalism of Maths + the pinheads that insist on this ideology gives "No one is qualified to speak authoritatively on this subject except us."
The comedy arises from the pinheads not knowing anything about the history of Science since about 1920, and that determinism (and 100 percent reliability) is now mostly passe.'
Round and Round this self-referential argument goes. Yawn.
Glad to see the thread has been unlocked. Hope Springs Eternal.
Fburton To answer your question. In all the positions found so far they were solved by humans using tablebases. Humans are allowed to use both tablebases and very strong chess engines.
Could there be some positions in the zillions of possible positions which even humans with the aid of table bases and chess engines cannot solve?
I am sure there must be but they would be the very rare exceptions and would very likely not be relevant to our question [is chess a draw]
What will happen might be the same thing that happened in checkers. For a very long time the best players were saying checkers is a draw Then checkers was solved and they were correct.
Sorry Ponz - I was trying to help you but I don't have the tools. I am sorry that you do not have any insight into this and cannot seem to get past square 1 despite many, many pages of dialogue. I haven'tt seen an argument from you that I think is coherent to say nothing of interesting. There is nothing that you have presented that would even earn a C from me in high school assignment.
Chess is likely a draw. Everyone thinks chess is likely a draw. But there is a beautiful world of thought out there that you and yekatrinas and zborg will never be part of because you just reject what you aren't good at. I tried to help. You didn't care.
Cya.
GM opinion + Centaur experience gives "chess is likely a draw."
Universalism of Maths + the pinheads that insist on this ideology gives "No one is qualified to speak authoritatively on this subject except us."
The comedy arises from the pinheads not knowing anything about the history of Science since about 1920, and that determinism (and 100 percent reliability) is now mostly passe.'
Round and Round this self-referential argument goes. Yawn.
Glad to see the thread has been unlocked. Hope Springs Eternal.
You make a lot of those mysterious comments about how math is supposedly unable to solve any problem with certainty. And I have no idea what you are talking about. You sent earlier a link to a book about Godel's theorem and their implications.
I might be wrong (because your posts are really mysterious), but are you trying to say the answer to chess is innacessible because of Godel's theorems ? Or is it something else ?
Good riddance. I question the reasoning abilities and sincereness of anyone who sees something unfortunate happen to somebody on chess.com and immediately blames it on someone he doesn't like.
I have a logical argument for chess being a draw (seriously, this is not a joke):
Premise 1 - Tic Tac Toe is a draw with best play from both sides.
Premise 2 - The advantage of having the first move in Tic Tac Toe is higher than in Chess.
Conclusion - Therefore, Chess is a draw with best play from both sides.
I have a logical argument for chess being a draw (seriously, this is not a joke):
Premise 1 - Tic Tac Toe is a draw with best play from both sides.
Premise 2 - The advantage of having the first move in Tic Tac Toe is higher than in Chess.
Conclusion - Therefore, Chess is a draw with best play from both sides.
you solved it case closed
I have a logical argument for chess being a draw (seriously, this is not a joke):
Premise 1 - Tic Tac Toe is a draw with best play from both sides.
Premise 2 - The advantage of having the first move in Tic Tac Toe is higher than in Chess.
Conclusion - Therefore, Chess is a draw with best play from both sides.
Premise 2 looks weird. the term "higher" is dubious in my opinion. Since the games are totally different, I don't know what criteria we could use to compare the advantage given by the first move in those two.
Moreover, one could argue that :
1) Since Tic Tac Toe is a draw, the first move adtvantage in that game is null.
2) If chess is a win for black, premises 1 and 2 are satisfied but not the conclusion.
However, the argument is interesting. Premises 1 and 2 ideed suggests (without proving it) that chess is a draw. Symetrical turn-based games in general (like chess) often turn out to be draws (tic tac toe, checkers, ...). The unfortunate fact is that it is not allways true (connect 4 is a first player win).
By the way connect 4 is a good counter example to your logical argument. Intuitively, the first move advantage is greater in tic tac toe than in connect 4. However it turns out tic tac toe is a draw and connect 4 is a first player win.
I think this shows how difficult it is to objectively compare the first move advantages of two different games (from a purely mathematical point of view, I would even argue that the notion of first move advantage is meaningless).
ponz111, please could you answer the question which I have put at least twice now (probably three times), namely: What did you hope to achieve by posting in the first place? What did you want to get out of this thread?
I have a logical argument for chess being a draw (seriously, this is not a joke):
Premise 1 - Tic Tac Toe is a draw with best play from both sides.
Premise 2 - The advantage of having the first move in Tic Tac Toe is higher than in Chess.
Conclusion - Therefore, Chess is a draw with best play from both sides.
Premise 2 looks weird. the term "higher" is dubious in my opinion. Since the games are totally different, I don't know what criteria we could use to compare the advantage given by the first move in those two.
Moreover, one could argue that :
1) Since Tic Tac Toe is a draw, the first move adtvantage in that game is null.
2) If chess is a win for black, premises 1 and 2 are satisfied but not the conclusion.
However, the argument is interesting. Premises 1 and 2 ideed suggests (without proving it) that chess is a draw. Symetrical turn-based games in general (like chess) often turn out to be draws (tic tac toe, checkers, ...). The unfortunate fact is that it is not allways true (connect 4 is a first player win).
By the way connect 4 is a good counter example to your logical argument. Intuitively, the first move advantage is greater in tic tac toe than in connect 4. However it turns out tic tac toe is a draw and connect 4 is a first player win.
I think this shows how difficult it is to objectively compare the first move advantages of two different games (from a purely mathematical point of view, I would even argue that the notion of first move advantage is meaningless).
Very good answer. I didn't know connect 4 was a win, I thought all games more complex than tic tac toe were draws. In that case, premise 2 is not necessarily correct.
Although in tic tac toe there are more possibilities of the first player winning than the second, just not with best play.
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.
e4 is not a mistake the italian game ponziani oppening sicilian vienna four knights game are all good openings but the ruy lopez closed defence chirgon varition cd leeds to a draw
Yekatrinas What you say is true but you can say that about most openings.