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

and you guys still didnt give any numbers, if you say more and more draws are an indication you also have to give numbers....

I also can say americans are richer now, because in reality everyone has 50000 dollars in their pocket...

how many of the top level GMs end in draw and how many in win for white??

then ofc you also have to take into account that some might be prearranged draws

ponz said :

"The queen and pawn vs queen endgames you keep referring is not something that grandmasters as a group had decided these were draws. Hardly any had even seen these exact positions"

I don't care that they saw them or not. The fact is, even today when we no they are wins, no GM is able to understand them and solve them. And when I say "GM", I should say "human being". My point is that there are parts of chess that are too complicated for humans. I you think I am wrong, try to solve one of those endgames. I tried and failed. I am convinced any human who tries that will fail.

I think it's being overconfident to say that the future of chess holds no surprise and that wa have now essentialy understood the game. Some really simple positions have proven that there are things we still do not understand.

That being said, I see no reason that the initial position should be one of the "easy positions" that human can understand. It looks to me like one of the more complex positions of the game of chess, and given that we have no clue how to solve some basic endgames, my opinion is that human beings have no clue how to solve the initial position.

TetsuoShima  You say I have to give numbers before you will believe more and more very top level games are ending in a draw.  But I already did and you ignored.  Again, I ask you to look at the World Championships for the last 100 years. Lots of numbers there. 

but world champions is only a small amount of the top level games, how is the difference between white and black wins, i bet its still substantial.

Y'know, aside from the the main conversation. Centaur Chess intrigues me. I imagine that it takes time, finesse, and a great degree of aptitude to skillfully play a game with an engine cohesively. One thought occurs to me, though-does it ever reach a point over the course of the game where it becomes indistinguishable precisely who is "leading" whom? I'm assuming the human has the ultimate say in the arbitrary matters ie resigning, drawing, which opening, what lines etc...but isn't there bound to be some degree of danger of being too dependant on your "partner"?

when top GMs hire seconds and analysts and stuff, do they actually hire people from otb chess or masters from centaur chess???

Im not sure, i have no clue but i have the feeling they hire the otb masters

the total wins and losses may exceed the number of draws!

They hire other top GM's but the people they hire use the best chess engines as do the top GMs.

I am sure they use chess engines to study openings and opening variations they are interested in.

but they do it with people who play otb and not centaur chess i believe, but that is just a theory i have

najdor96   I have had recent experience with centaur chess  in the Ponziani Challenge.  

I am an amateur centaur player as this is very new to me and  I do not have the very strongest computer or know how to effectively use data bases and other techniques.

However, I am often telling my stockfish what to look at and what not to look at.

By the way "amateur centaur player"  a new term?

Yes, they hire top over-the-board players who are almost as strong as themselves in over-the-board play.

And then they both use chess engines.  They are "professional centaurs" in that sense. Their emphasis is not correspondence chess. Their emphasis is studying many openings that they expect to play or run into.

It is time consuming. I've played it on a site that encourages centaur chess. I stopped because I did not have the time.

Humans control the move input, which proves a disability when you get into a tablebase position with seconds on the clock, as can happen in the engine room on PlayChess. Many engines there refuse to play centaurs. 

TetsuoShimo  I picked the world championship matches as those pretty much showed the best players and best play at the time.

I have not even looked at this but my guess is that any pre matches to all these world championship matches saw the same phenomenon--the percentage of draws increased over the years.

Also in the US Championships of Correspondence Chess [19?] you will see a very big increase of the number of draws of the winning players over the years.

I would guess if you looked up any such events on your own you would see the same thing.  [rather than say you do not know it is true] 

I don't get why you're still all arguing about this?

Irrelevant details:

- How subtle and intricate tactical combinations can be, and whether or not we can see them (as a sidenote, I was reading a chess book that showed a composed position which read "Mate in 114." Literally.)

- GM's opinions

- Personal Game Experience

- Personal Feelings

- Personal tenacity to a particular viewpoint

Everything useful that there was to be said was stated in the first three pages. Ponz, the argument that says, "There is not a single game where white/black won even though (the opposing color) made no mistakes" is irrelevant because: A, it's anecdotal, and B: there has never been a single mistake-free game, regardless of whether white, black, or purple wins.

Seriously. You've all got way too much time on your hands. On pages 1-3 these conclusions were reached:

1.There is no mathematical proof yet provided which proves the statement either way.

2. Ponz knows and admits this and also admits that he is just really convinced that the view has to be right because he's played so many games .

By deduction, we can say that you've all produced 89 pages of nonsense, the matter is settled (in that it's unsettled, and always will be) Ponz has way too much time on his hands, and Ponz has nurtured a 92-page debate because he likes arguing about stupid concepts with no hope or sign of a possible conclusion (because of the excess of possible moves in each chess game and the limitations of human knowledge.) So don't feed the tiger anymore.

ben_lozier_5 wrote:

I don't get why you're still all arguing about this?

Irrelevant details:

- How subtle and intricate tactical combinations can be, and whether or not we can see them.

- GM's opinions

- Personal Game Experience

- Personal Feelings

- Personal tenacity to a particular viewpoint

Everything useful that there was to be said was stated in the first three pages. Ponz, the argument that says, "There is not a single game where white/black won even though (the opposing color) made no mistakes" is irrelevant because: A, it's anecdotal, and B: there has never been a single mistake-free game, regardless of whether white, black, or purple wins.

Seriously. You've all got way too much time on your hands. On pages 1-3 these conclusions were reached:

1.There is no mathematical proof yet provided which proves the statement either way.

2. Ponz knows and admits this and also admits that he is just really convinced that the view has to be right because he's played so many games .

By deduction, we can say that you've all produced 89 pages of nonsense, the matter is settled (in that it's unsettled, and always will be) Ponz has way too much time on his hands, and Ponz has nurtured a 92-page debate because he likes arguing about stupid concepts with no hope or sign of a possible conclusion (because of the excess of possible moves in each chess game and the limitations of human knowledge.) So don't feed the tiger anymore.

Best post

Taking us to task for failing to realistically assess.

Ben ?....I'm not so sure you can say "and always will be"....

Lots of laughs for a long time I was mostly the one defending the idea that in reality it is very probably true that chess is a draw.  Just to say my ideas are stupid means nothing. 

There is no debate on has it been math proven chess is a draw? The answer is  "no" though some try and say my answer is "yes" That is where we get mired in mud as I have never said "yes" to that question. 

Irrelevant.  A perfect game will never be played, so why trouble ourselves?