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

Maybe yes. But white starts with an advantage, being up a tempo.

I am pretty sure that rating does affect your champion score; I saw this in one of Janton's forum post. Also, I have a 97% activity, but my rating is only 1479, and I only have a champion rating of 245.

TetsuoShima  In the United States and in court rooms circumstantial evidence is used very often.

"Where were you at the time of the murder?"

"I was watching "Rocky" at the Balboa Theater at that time."

"Rocky" has not been playing at that theater for years.

Witnesses saw your car outside the apartment where the murder took place.

"It was only a car that looked like my car"

"you were going through a nasty divorce with the victim"

"Not true, we were about to get back together"

"You took out a $500,000 insurance policy on the victim a month before she was killed."

"That was just a cooincidence"

All of this is circumstantial evidence and IS considered in court rooms.

Yes, rating does affect the champion rank, but the activity also very strongly affects, so even though there are regular users with ratings many hundreds of points higher than mine (2180 at the moment), I rank first on the champion board at the moment because my activity is 95%-100%. I understand the motivation for them wanting to have active people weighted higher, but I think it should be based purely on rating with inactive people not shown (maybe with a checkbox to see inactive people or not). The people at the top of that board should be the regular users that have ratings much higher than me, even if they don't compulsively practice every day of the week like I do ;-).

I practice every day of the week, but mostly do make sure MrGreen doesn't ever catch up to me in route planner.

I think I've only done the route planner a few times, but I really love their tactics -- so many beautiful little combinations and positions with tempting wrong moves and tactics that almost work.

It is a good game, but there is a limit to how hard you can make the problems. The longest problem I have seen is nine moves. Even the longest problems can be traced from the final square back to the start.

Well then, I am about to blow your mind:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/longest-checkmate-problem-290-move

Half of the problems that I've solved with the Chess Quest iPhone/iPad app are longer than 10 moves. None have been 290 moves though.

Yeah, when Alekhine piles pieces around your king it was just game over... I was playing over a game once where he had FIVE pieces near the enemy king... he kept passing up minor tactics to move another one closer, or one that was already there even closer still.  I would have resigned simply for the overwhelming feeling of doom when Alekhine gets close to your king.

A draw (or a "solution" from a tablebase) that requires hundreds of moves will be of no practical significance for anyone's play, from GM's to patzers.

That's already true of many solutions from the 6 and 7 piece tablebases.  A solution that takes 250+ moves is meaningless over the board.  Duh?

Overall, the incentive to cheat might rise, but the incentive to play will likely remain the same.

It's amazing how long this topic has been flogged to death by people sufferring from the Cartesian Vice.

This game is different. You are given a piece other than a pawn or a king, and you have to check the opponent's king in as few moves as possible, without moving to a square where you could be captured by an enemy piece. I have seen that puzzle before.

Folks, I have been saying I am 99.9% sure chess is a draw.  But I overlooked some evidence and some new evidence came in. This evidence proves the game of chess is a win for Black with best play!

What evidence?

True. 100% Draw.

White attacks.

Black defends.

Same amount of pieces each side.

Same amount of potential.

Draw.

The last 14 games in correspondence type chess or Centaur Chess I scored 7 out of 7 wins with Black in the Finals 7th United States Correspondence Championship and in this latest Ponziani Challenge my score with Black was 5 wins and 2 draws.  Thus chess is a win for Black.  I must have made errors on the two games I did not win out of the 14.

The Ponziani in correspondence chess?

Someone in another thread wrote, in part:

The basic sprit of chess is to use your own mind. In earlier times, such things ( opening books and databases)were allowed cause  at that time nature and availability of such resources were very different. Today these are readily available on computers. You just need to put a position on your database and out of millions of games, it will show you all the games in which such position existed and you can see how titled players reacted to those situation it can go on.

Now what are the implications of using these resources:

...

2. Allowing opening explorer and database use means 'forget using gambit openings and sharp tactical openings such as Ponziani. Ponziani is a very good opening against somebody who doesn't know it but if your opponent has access to explorer and database excess and you use ponziani, good luck trying to get a result out of it) 

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/cheat-enginescc-says-it-ok?page=3

I'm interested, Ponz - where's your proof for the fact that black will win games if played perfectly?

I used and won with the Ponziani when I won the 7th USA Correspondence Championship.  I was never world champion-- only USA Correspondence Champion.  

Ben l 77    it was said in jest as my record with Black in the 7th USA Correspondece Championship was 7 wins out of 7 games. And my more recent record in "Ponz Says He Can Refute Ponziani" is [taking the Black side] is 5 wins for Black and 2 draws.

This is counter evidence that there are more and more draws in Centaur Chess and that there are more and more draws in the games of the best players.  It is the exception that proves the rule so to speak. It is also counter to the current theme that Black wins only rarely in Centaur Chess.