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

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zborg

To date, there's no forced win for white, or black, for that matter.

That's about all we can assert with certainty.

But the game remains damn easy to lose.  We all do that, regularly.  Smile

ponz111
TheGrobe wrote:
ponz111 wrote:

Chess has not been solved in the sense of ...

Yeah, I'll stop you right there -- there's only one "sense" of solved, and it's not what the very best players "know".

You misquote me. I did not say the best players know the game is "solved". [because they don't]

I said "The best players make the very reasonable assumption that chess is a draw when neither side makes a mistake."

leiph18

Ponz, if you would only change your phrasing to remove such absolute statements this topic would have been 7 days long not 17 months.

The result of best play is not known by anyone.

Top players, and reasonable people assume with good reason that a perfect game is a draw.

TheGrobe
ponz111 wrote:
TheGrobe wrote:
ponz111 wrote:

Chess has not been solved in the sense of ...

Yeah, I'll stop you right there -- there's only one "sense" of solved, and it's not what the very best players "know".

You misquote me. I did not say the best players know the game is "solved". [because they don't]

I said "The best players make the very reasonable assumption that chess is a draw when neither side makes a mistake."

No, you said the best players know.

Melvyn-G

"The sun will rise tommorow",not in England it won't.!

JGambit
zborg wrote:

To date, there's no forced win for white, or black, for that matter.

That's about all we can assert with certainty.

But the game remains damn easy to lose.  We all do that, regularly.  

+1, there re so many moves that lose that it is unreal, but if neither side makes them, Draw. What an awesome game.

ponz111

TheGrobe You can know something with out 100% proof. Otherwise we would "know" nothing.

SmyslovFan

Ponz is right, the best players do accept that chess is a draw. It's those who are saying, well, since there's a chance that it's not a draw, it's not a draw.

All the best players operate on the principle that chess is a draw with best play. If their opponents play well and the game ends in a draw, no GM will claim they were winning from move one. 

Chess is a draw until proven otherwise. Nessie doesn't exist until proven otherwise.

Elubas

Some "mathematicians" here were arguing that it's only 70% likely or so that chess is a draw a year or so ago. Basically their argument was that it doesn't matter so much that our intuition and experience seems so correct here because it could still go wrong. They used some math example where some formula holds true until you go really far out and finally there is some counterexample.

Their point is taken, but it's so hard to really confirm the validity of the analogy. There are many things, not just chess things, for which we rely on the fact that it has never failed in previous examples. Every time we let go of a pen it does fall. So I tend to think the next time I let go of it, it really will fall, even though it's possible it was just a big coincidence that it fell the other couple trillion times.

We could not play good chess if we could only have "70% hunches" when we had a ton of observational evidence when evaluating a position. A position with four pawns on each side and an extra rook is winning for the side with the rook. Yeah, there are zillions of possibilities from there, but nevertheless, for any of them to win, they have to involve certain things that are easy to observe for an experienced player. In fact the few times where the extra rook isn't winning I can tell you exactly what those positions are like -- the other side has super far advanced pawns/king or something. Or the rook is hanging.

Elubas
leiph18 wrote:

In imperfect chess efficiency is a virtue.

In solved chess it's meaningless.

You might as well qualify meaningless (there's no real advantage to not doing so). If we are only gathering info about the result, then it's meaningless with respect to result. The thing is moves do have virtues -- that's why advantages can add up with other advantages to result in a winning position, even if none of those advantages by themselves would create a winning position. If it followed from the latter that advantages have no value, then it wouldn't matter how many advantages you had, outpost for the knight, better development, space advantage, passed pawn, since they are all worth 0 you couldn't get a winning position from any combination of them.

The_Ghostess_Lola

How could chess not be a draw when you both start with the same = & opposite pieces ? White has the initiative but most likely could not convert the point, no ?

Cavatine

The_Ghostess_Lola: Nobody knows!  ... I think it seems unlikely but it's hard to prove it mathematically, rigorously.

Ziryab
Cavatine wrote:

The_Ghostess_Lola: Nobody knows!  ... I think it seems unlikely but it's hard to prove it mathematically, rigorously.

"Hard"!

There are 10^43 positions, approximately, that must be assessed. The vast majority are trivial, however, and easily assessed. In actual play between equal players, most positions are less clear.

LoekBergman

@SmyslovFan: Nessie exists or not irrespective of our proof of her/his evidence, just like chess is basically a draw or not, irrespective if we can proof it or not.

I perceive however a funny difference: the assertion 'chess is a draw' lacks any proof, just as the assertion 'Nessie exists'. There is ample evidence that chess is not a draw and Nessie has been looked for many many times without success. Yet, it seems more rational to assert 'chess is a draw' and appears more irrational to say 'Nessie exists'.

Do you think there exists life in the universe outside our planet? Without any proof for it, is it considered more rational to say that life outside our planet exists than to say that chess is a draw than to say that Nessie exists. It appears that there is an ordering of supposed rationality concerning totally unprovable statements. :-)

TheGrobe
ponz111 wrote:

TheGrobe You can know something with out 100% proof. Otherwise we would "know" nothing.

Well sure, if you're going to erode the definition of "solution" why not do the same to the word "knowlege".

TheGrobe
SmyslovFan wrote:

 It's those who are saying, well, since there's a chance that it's not a draw, it's not a draw.

I don't think I've seen anyone actually say this.  I've seen "Since there's a chance that it's not a draw, we can't know for certain what the outcome with best play is." 

SmyslovFan wrote:

Chess is a draw until proven otherwise. Nessie doesn't exist until proven otherwise.

No, certainty about Nessie's existence doesn't exist until proven otherwise, just as certainty about chess' solution doesn't exist until proven otherwise.

TheGrobe
The_Ghostess_Lola wrote:

How could chess not be a draw when you both start with the same = & opposite pieces ? White has the initiative but most likely could not convert the point, no ?

When you consider that K+N+N v K is a draw, and just how much of an endgame imbalance it requires to actually force a win, it certainly makes it hard to imagine that the first move advantage could be leveraged sufficiently to force an imblance big enough to force a win.

TheGrobe
LoekBergman wrote:

@SmyslovFan: Nessie exists or not irrespective of our proof of her/his evidence, just like chess is basically a draw or not, irrespective if we can proof it or not.

I perceive however a funny difference: the assertion 'chess is a draw' lacks any proof, just as the assertion 'Nessie exists'. There is ample evidence that chess is not a draw and Nessie has been looked for many many times without success. Yet, it seems more rational to assert 'chess is a draw' and appears more irrational to say 'Nessie exists'.

Do you think there exists life in the universe outside our planet? Without any proof for it, is it considered more rational to say that life outside our planet exists than to say that chess is a draw than to say that Nessie exists. It appears that there is an ordering of supposed rationality concerning totally unprovable statements. :-)

Unproved, not unprovable.  The ordering of supposed rationality is simply a matter of probability.

It is very probable (almost certain, even) that life exists elsewhere in the vastness of the cosmos.

It is also very probably (but much less certain) that chess is a draw with best play.

It is very unlikely that Nessie exists.

None of these things, however, are known with certainty.

SmyslovFan
LoekBergman wrote:

@SmyslovFan: Nessie exists or not irrespective of our proof of her/his evidence, just like chess is basically a draw or not, irrespective if we can proof it or not.

I perceive however a funny difference: the assertion 'chess is a draw' lacks any proof, just as the assertion 'Nessie exists'. There is ample evidence that chess is not a draw and Nessie has been looked for many many times without success. Yet, it seems more rational to assert 'chess is a draw' and appears more irrational to say 'Nessie exists'.

...

I have seen no evidence whatsoever showing that chess is not a draw. All the evidence I've seen in all the years I've played the game shows that it's most likely a draw. As Jonathan Speelman, Bobby Fischer, and many others have said, it's almost certainly a draw. (They've been quoted elsewhere in the discussion.)

In this case, arguing from authority is indeed appropriate since they really are authorities in the field, as is using the available analytical tools (the various silicon engines that show White does not have a decisive advantage in the opening). Also, the very rules of chess require White (almost nobody argues that Black has a decisive advantage from move 1) has at least two pieces to deliver checkmate. I have not seen a single modern evaluation of the starting position as being +/-1 full pawn.

I know of no evidence that shows that chess is decisive with best play. 

zborg

Chess is Drawn Out.

That's a perfectly safe claim, were it not for the hairsplitters.