True or false? Chess will never be solved! why?

50 move rule is elective -- so is threefold repetition, however for one (or possibly both) of the two players claiming the draw is perfect play so it should be claimed.

With imperfect play, games of infinite length are technically allowed.

It will be solved.  There is no reason to store every position possible in the game.  All that needs to be stored is optimal lines.

Games have also repeated. Scholar's Mate is one example.

I figure it'll be solved eventually as well. Computers have already solved checkers/draughts if I remember rightly. Mind you that's childs play compared to the way chess works.

Games like tic-tac-toe are "closed strategy games" that have been "solved" ie if both players know how to play correctly every game will be drawn. This is a real chump-change example, but one that should be familar to everyone. 

Chess is still an "open strategy" game. So far there is no evidence that it will be solved, so believing that it will be solved is, IMHO, pretty  much like believing we will eventually travel faster than the speed of light or that FOX "News" will begin telling the truth anyday now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2004-05/1085070559.Ph.r.html

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Chess.html

Could as easily say there is no evidence that it will not be solved, so believing it won't is...etc.  Those links only say there are a lot of positions, not that it is an insurmountable task.

No, if you have any grasp of the sheer magnitude of the Shannon Number you understand that those links do in fact say that it is an insurmuontable tasks.

Math can always grow faster than computing power.

There's no "friction" in math.  It is not a physics problem. 

Ditto with String Theory.  And Fox News too.  Thanks, @NimzoRoy.  

The way I see it (which isn't neccesarily correct!), is that there's a finite number of legal moves in any game. Now, that finite number is probably so huge as to be beyond solving, however it is still a finite number. Therefore, theoretically, it is possible to play through every possible move. However, practically, that's probably impossible to achieve.

I do and no they don't.  Insurmountable currently, sure.

This. I dont understand why people keep bringing up the atom story. Yes there are alot of positions, but the overwhelming majority of those will never have to be analyzed/computed/whateverd because they will never be part of the solution(s).

Insurmountable always.

It will take the computer a long time just to list those positions among the 10^43 possible that are worth devoting its resources to solving. That process alone will take ...

On second thought, the computer will need to briefly evaluate each one. Centuries with current computing power will prove too short of time.

Once the contested positions are identified, the computer can begin solving them. 

Yes lots of things are easily said when you don't know anything about logic. Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly a paragon of logic myself but things aren't possible because they haven't been disproved - they are impossible until they have been proved. 

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/arguing-from-ignorance/

LOL of course my statement was fallacious.  It was a parallel one to show that yours was logically fallacious.

Sigh.

False!

Saying chess will NEVER be solved is a general statement, bound to be derailed.

Already, we have 6-piece tablebases today (Every possible position solved containing 6 pieces or fewer) . In a few years time, we are expected to have 7-piece tablebases.

And  mankind's computing power will continue to grow exponentially. Barring any sort of cataclysmic disasters sending society back to the caveman days, 32-piece tabebases can be expected within the next 100 years.

I think it may be solved, but will take at least 1 billion years at least to solve, even with the world's best computers working on it.

Chess can be solved. It's just a matter of time. After 10,20, 50 years. But that is not the real problem. The problem is cheating in chess. How to catch  the cheaters in otb plays. If this problem can't be solved, otb chess will die before chess is solved.

Computers can solve chess but humans will never have the brainpower to solve or remember every possible/rational postition.

I was just thinking about Shannon numbers. It occurred to me that the tree all begins with one out of a possible 20 moves. Now, i'm assuming a bit here, but if the first move of a3, a4, h3, h4, Na3, Nh3 are considered bad, doesn't that reduce the possibility of finding the correct solutions in the Shannon number by at least a quarter? Now, if the same first moves for black are also bad, how much would that reduce it by?