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

Yeah. None.. I repeat.. None of that is evidence. You can call it circumstantial to tear away from the truth, but none of it is evidence. I will break down why. Maybe one can be considered any kind of evidence and I will explain which.

1. You CANNOT claim the majority of top players say it without them really saying it and you can prove they said it. It's like saying, "most A players are tactical." While you can prove that a handfull of A class players are indeed tactical, you can't prove that most are without pooling them individually and getting a statistic. Sure I can claim this without taking an individual poll. Every top player except 1 who has ever been asked this question, states chess is a draw. The probability that almost all top players believe chess is a draw is very high.

2. Yes. Out of a few million games in a database all losses are because someone made a mistake. But wanna know a secret? A lot of the draws were also because someone made a mistake. This is not relevant because if someone is winning it means someone made a mistake and you are just saying that after someone is winning another mistake can be made.  Some of the wins were from the winner making a mistake and only capitolizing on the last mistake. This is true but not relevant. I have analysed a lot of GM games. And with GM help have seen a lot of mistakes in their games that most people don't know exist. This is not relevant either. Yet.. you believe the only reason a result tanked was because of one error? Here you misquote me. I am saying the mistake to be a mistake has to be one which changes the result of the game. This is delusional. I went over a game where a GM disected a world championship game and found 5 mistakes in the first 8 moves. That Super GMS can make a lot of mistakes is not relevant. I could give you a game where two super grandmasters were playing each other and on the 4th move the supergrandmaster with White made a losing move and the supergrandmaster with Black then also made a error which would change the result of the game on his 4th move. The fact that people make mistakes and the fact that each mistake can change the eventual result of the game, does not negate that chess is a draw when both sides do not make a mistake. Wanna restate this one?

3. I can debunk this one with the last comment. The games that were taken from the world championship were within the last 100 years.;-) I think maybe you should stop trying to figure out how the game result would be if there was no mistakes and try to figure out how to reduce your own. It would be time better spent. this is not a debunk. What errors I may make in my own games have nothing to do with the question Is chess a draw when both sides make no errors.

4. No.. No opening in history has been theoretically analysed to a draw.This depends on what you mean by "theoretically analyzed to a draw" Some players say the Petroff Defense has been analyzed to a draw.  Period. If this was true, then this wouldn't be circumstantial evidence it would be evidence and you could prove it. Here you are wrong again. We are talking about the Petroff Defense where White Starts with 1. e4.  There is no reason that White cannot start with 1. d4 or 1. c4 or 1.Nf3 or any number of moves for his first move. There is a difference between draw game and "DRAWISH". Look it up sometime. Same reason there is a difference between "Equal vs Drawish". I know the difference. If an opening is very drawish, it does not prove in itself that chess is a draw--it is just an indication.

5. So far this is the ONLY one that can be submitted as circumstantial evidence. I will accept it. it does not matter if you will accept evidence or not.  The fact that computers are having trouble with theory and drawing does give reason to believe chess can be drawish.   But you need to understand something about computers and their horizon effect. And the tie in as to why a computer will not solve chess till we expand this "horizon effect" beyond a certain ply.Wrong, if you want absolute proof you would need a 32 piece table base and we will never have this. The fact that the best computers, playing each other, have a lot of draws is circumstanial evidence    In theory reseachers believe that we won't have a definitive result for this debate until computers can break the 100 ply horizon. Wrong, we will never absolutely prove until we have a 32 piece table base and that will never happen.

Let me give you an example of what that means..

Currently the average computer can bust easily the 20-22 ply.  What that means is it can see accurately all positions to about 22-26 ply or 11-13 moves. It's horizon effect depending on the engine and the strength of your processor and memory determine where the horizon effect is. 

What is this horizon effect? It's the period when the computer cannot go further and evaluates THAT position based on it's programmed theory. Similar to how GM's do it. And it draws a line right there and spits out an evaluation. Well what happens if the line in which refutes a computers line is beyond the horizon effect?? It will miss it until the horizon is covering that area. Lets pretend like there is a line that is a trap. The trap is intended to be officially sprung on the 18th  or 20th move of a combination. And we assume all computers can do right now is 13-14 ply. You can follow the line of play and find out that 4-5 moves in the computer changes it's eval to -8.00 and that the best line after the 4th move is -3.00. What you have done is let the computer lead you into a trap. And a lot of openings in theory have similar lines.

Back to the idea. Researchers believe that you need to go 100 ply. That is an engine within an 8 hour period needs to be able to see at least 50 moves without a horizon effect in order to come close to solving chess. coming close to solving chess is not 100% solving chess. however as you expand the ply, the more circumstanial evidence you will have that chess is a draw. The whole question is NOT about can we solve chess as we already know that it would take a 32 piece table base to "solve" chess and that will never happen. The question is "Is chess a draw when neither side makes a mistake"   Or even determine what the chances are that it can be determined what the result would be if no mistakes were made.

Does this place it in better perspective? no, it was already obvious that as you expand the  skills of a computer, the more circumstanial evidence you have that chess is a draw when neither side mades an error.

6. Checkers is solved. It doesn't qualify as evidence at all. It is to chess as tictactoe is to connect four. Here you are probably correct.

The conclusion: Chess can't be solved in the foreseeable future. Period.

Either of which can't be adequately proven.

Ponz, I think 99.99% of people agree with you that chess is probably a draw for all the reasons you mentioned.

Yet this topic is almost 2000 posts long. Weird huh