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

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zborg

"Never" in our lifetimes, but it's still a draw with best play, because white cannot force a win.

Topology ain't got nothing to do with it.  Sorry.

You might as well watch the movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), and then continue to dream-on.

And Please, be relevant, helpful & nice!  Smile   

watcha

I think it is worth summarizing the assumptions that we make about solving chess:

1) We demand a strong solution

2) In order to have a strong solution you need a memory capable of storing the outcome of all legal positions ( save simple symmetries )

3) The number of legal positions in chess is not significantly lower than the proven upper bound of 10^46

4) Chess is computationally irreducible ( that is only exhaustive brute force tree search works )

Given the assumptions above there is nothing that makes chess unsolvable, but the solution seems extremely hard, and will take time.

If you hope for a quick solution you have to drop one or more of the above assumptions and give good reasons for doing so.

watcha

To 'deem' a thing and to 'prove' a thing are two different things.

watcha
Mathemagics wrote:

Well it could only be proven by brute forcing all continuations to see if the opening is solid against all possibilities ... so I don't understand your point.

That's my point.

watcha

We are talking about solving chess here rather than creating a reasonable chess engine.

Solving involves proof, not just solutions that are good FAPP ( for all practical purposes ).

It has been said several times that the hard obstacle to the solution by brute force is not the number of possible games, rather the number of possible positions, because you can always build a transposition table from positions that you have already seen during the tree search.

efrenO

32 man tablebase , brute force ,  not the way  to  solve chess . Its like a Physics equation being solve by means  of algebra  . To  solve  complicated physics  problems, man  invented  Calculus . in the  same  manner that  we need  a  new  method to  solve  chess . The  starting position is  equal ,  how  can  white  or  Black   get an advantage from nothing  ?  It  might  be  a  draw .   A  chess  law  , conservation of position  and material  advantage  - 

watcha

"After sifting through 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 (500 billion billion) checkers positions"

Yes. By shifting through. Not by deeming anything.

StanleyBu

u all professional chess player.

StanleyBu

u all professional chess player.

Tapani
watcha wrote:

I think it is worth summarizing the assumptions that we make about solving chess:

1) We demand a strong solution

2) In order to have a strong solution you need a memory capable of storing the outcome of all legal positions ( save simple symmetries )

3) The number of legal positions in chess is not significantly lower than the proven upper bound of 10^46

4) Chess is computationally irreducible ( that is only exhaustive brute force tree search works )

Assumption four is wron.g There is structure to exploit, the question is just how much. Also solving chess does not necessarily mean looking at all legal positions, so I doubt number three. Only positions that can be forced from the starting position against an optimal player needs to be considered.

watcha
Tapani wrote:

Assumption four is wron.g There is structure to exploit, the question is just how much. Also solving chess does not necessarily mean looking at all legal positions, so I doubt number three. Only positions that can be forced from the starting position against an optimal player needs to be considered.

You are making two points.

Point blue: so far there is no evidence for this. There are always loopholes in heuristic ( computationally reducible ) evaluations. Any solution should involve proof and I have not seen a method that can prove anything apart from exhaustive tree search.

Point red: if you require a strategy against an optimal player from the starting position, you are talking about a weak solution ( dropping assumption 1 ). While this is possible, this is not the 'real thing' everyone is waiting for. I want to know whether the king's gambit is a draw or win for one side, not that the starting position is a draw ( which everyone 'knows' already ).

Scottrf

The problem with that assumption is that it's only equal to whatever search depth you look to, one side might have a very deep advantage.

Scottrf

You've never seen an engine change its evaluation of a position?

I think maybe you don't understand how they work.

Scottrf

Just because a position is given as equal, doesn't mean that you can play the best moves and it will stay equal.

Iluvsmetuna

Do computers even know if 1.d4 is better than 1.e4 ?

Tapani
watcha wrote:
Tapani wrote:

Assumption four is wron.g There is structure to exploit, the question is just how much. Also solving chess does not necessarily mean looking at all legal positions, so I doubt number three. Only positions that can be forced from the starting position against an optimal player needs to be considered.

Point blue: so far there is no evidence for this. There are always loopholes in heuristic ( computationally reducible ) evaluations. Any solution should involve proof and I have not seen a method that can prove anything apart from exhaustive tree search.

Trivial example: transpositions. That is structure that reduces the search from a tree to a dag.

Tapani
Erik-the-Viking wrote:

Do computers even know if 1.d4 is better than 1.e4 ?

No. Nowhere close. This is a theoretical discussion. :)

Scottrf
Mathemagics wrote:
Scottrf wrote:

Just because a position is given as equal, doesn't mean that you can play the best moves and it will stay equal.

WHAT!?!

You have got to be joking!

Watch an engine play itself, it will play the best moves to avoid it's own plans therefore drawing the game... The reason people lose a game of chess is by not making the best moves in a position and giving the other person an advantage!

I don't understand what you don't understand!

 

EDIT: AH! is it in the wording of "given"? I'm speaking about an objectively equal position not one that after hours of calculations a computer finds a forcing line that forces an advantage.

You really think an engine always draws against itself?

Scottrf

Ignorance and arrogance is a horrible combination.

watcha
Tapani wrote:

Trivial example: transpositions. That is structure that reduces the search from a tree to a dag.

I have to admit that this is a tricky argument.

However it does not affect the essence of my assumptions.

Transpositions are already accounted for in my assumptions, when I'm speaking about the number of legal positions as a limiting factor. Nowhere in my assumptions does the number of legal games appear.

Transposition tables are a clever way to speed up exhaustive tree search, but they don't represent an alternative to exhaustive tree search. More importantly they have nothing to do with the structure of chess, since they can be used in the case of any board game, just as alphabeta can speed up minimax in the case of any board game ( so you can't claim that alphabeta is part of the structure of chess ).

There is no general method in complex positions that can prove anything apart from exhaustive tree search ( whether it is optimized by transposition tables or not ). For example you can 'prove' for certain selected positions that they are a fortress by reasoning that is not reliant on exhaustive tree search. But the point is that given an arbitrary position, you don't have a general algorythm which can tell whether it is a fortress or not, apart from exhaustive tree search.