Aesthetically and from the point of view of game theory, 50 or 75-move rules are ugly and unnecessary, but for avoiding interminable waste of time in real games, they are useful. When a position requires you play a huge number of precise moves to advance a pawn one square, this is probably not suited to humans.
True or false? Chess will never be solved! why?
#1215
No, thanks to either the 50 moves rule or the 3 fold repetition rule the number of games is finite.
The FIDE basic rules of chess have not included the 50 move rule or the 3 fold repetition rules since 2017.
Wrong about both. See 9.2.1 and 9.3 in https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018
A 5-time repetition rule and 75-move rule were added in addition to this. Apparently they do not require a player to claim them, but can be invoked by the arbiter.
The FIDE basic rules of chess are the articles from 1 to 5. Look at the first page.
Article 9 comes under competition rules.
Fair enough. Didn't notice that distinction.
10^120 is only finite in a purely theoretical sense.
It's more than the number of atoms in the universe, and by more I mean it would take about 10^40 universes worth of atoms to get there.
"so you're tellin me there's a chance"
More relevant than the number of atoms in the universe is the number of possible arrangements/states of those atoms. (And apparently a lot of stuff in the universe isn't atoms anyway.)
#1224
"You don't think Black ever reaches a position in any line where the top engine move, for a given engine, wouldn't hold the draw, but another one would?"
++ If the calculation ends in a table base draw, then that retrospectively validates all top 1 black moves as good enough to draw
"Engines lose to each other all the time."
++ Not at all. In TCEC they have to impose slightly unbalanced openings to avoid all draws.
Most misevaluations of engines happen in the early stage with more than 26 men, where the game is most complex.
"So "top 1 move" is nonsense on its face"
++ Top 1 for black is correct as long as the calculation ends in a table base draw
"if you have to even go to top 4 for both sides in most positions to be safe"
++ Top 4 is necessary for white, not for black. You can argue about a theoretical possibility that top 1, top 2, top 3, and top 4 are white mistakes and top 5 is no mistake. Sometimes there even are no reasonable 4 white moves.
"how about solving one subset of an ECO code to the 7-piece tablebases"
++ even 1 ECO code is still a huge task requiring 5 years on 1 modern computer

Wasn't the 75-move rule introduced because computers had taught us that KNRvKR were not drawn but did take more than 50 moves?
Νο.

False, as referred to in the alphazero page by someone i forgot, there are too many moves to record in our universe.
Wasn't the 75-move rule introduced because computers had taught us that KNRvKR were not drawn but did take more than 50 moves?
It wouldn't actually be KNRvKR because the longest mate in that endgame is 37 moves.
There was a 75 move rule briefly introduced in 1989 (according to Wikipedia, so take with a pinch of salt) for certain endgames only which included KBRvKR, which does have mates that can't be effected within the 50 move rule.
I think the 2017 rule was introduced just to avoid problems with tournament schedules and keep the sponsors happy.
False, as referred to in the alphazero page by someone i forgot, there are too many moves to record in our universe.
When people quote numbers you should check out the numbers, not just accept what they say.
Aesthetically and from the point of view of game theory, 50 or 75-move rules are ugly and unnecessary, but for avoiding interminable waste of time in real games, they are useful. When a position requires you play a huge number of precise moves to advance a pawn one square, this is probably not suited to humans.
Aesthetically Guy Haworth's DTR metric is not ugly (merely difficult).
Sadly Guy recently died.

#1215
No, thanks to either the 50 moves rule or the 3 fold repetition rule the number of games is finite.
The FIDE basic rules of chess have not included the 50 move rule or the 3 fold repetition rules since 2017.
Wrong about both. See 9.2.1 and 9.3 in https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018
A 5-time repetition rule and 75-move rule were added in addition to this. Apparently they do not require a player to claim them, but can be invoked by the arbiter.
If there's no arbiter, the players don't notice and the game ends defined, could the loser appeal later? Just out of curiosity.
A 5-time repetition rule and 75-move rule were added in addition to this. Apparently they do not require a player to claim them, but can be invoked by the arbiter.
If there's no arbiter, the players don't notice and the game ends defined, could the loser appeal later? Just out of curiosity.
If there's no arbiter the game is apparently not being played under competition rules and the 50/75 move rules and 3-fold/5-fold repetition rules are not in effect.
If the game is played under competition rules, the Arbiter's handbook says:
In both 9.6.1 and 9.6.2 cases the Arbiter must intervene and stop the game, declaring
it as a draw.
The competition rules game in any case terminates by the rules when the 75 move rule and/or 5-fold repetition rule conditions are met. The result is a draw. Whatever the arbiter or players do subsequently is not part of the game. If the the result is incorrectly recorded because no-one has noticed, an appeal should be successful.

Faulty logic.
If the basic rules of chess were amended to make the board size say 1000000 x 1000000 and the starting position just a black king on one of the central four squares and a white king on a1 and white rook on a1000000, then the average number of pairs of moves by White and Black throughout the game would exceed 4000000. A mate would need around 1000000 moves.
A total beginner would nevertheless have no difficulty solving the game.

solved by computers: probably, with the exponential growth of computer power chess can be "solved".
solved by humans: no shot, way too many positions
solved by computers: probably, with the exponential growth of computer power chess can be "solved".
solved by humans: no shot, way too many positions
There are many more isosceles triangles in a Euclidean plane than there are chess positions. Didn't stop Euclid from proving the base angles in each are equal.
And he didn't use his abacus at all.
However, the definition of an isosceles triangle is a triangle in which the base angles are equal. Therefore there isn't a proof because no proof is required. ...
"Isosceles" means equal legs, not equal angles. You should try getting to grips with elementary mathematics sometime.
(You could start with Euclid book 1. You need only get as far as Proposition 5. to straighten yourself out on the point in question. In fact, with a little nous, Proposition 4. should be sufficient - but that might be asking too much.)
#1215
No, thanks to either the 50 moves rule or the 3 fold repetition rule the number of games is finite.
The FIDE basic rules of chess have not included the 50 move rule or the 3 fold repetition rules since 2017.
Wrong about both. See 9.2.1 and 9.3 in https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018
A 5-time repetition rule and 75-move rule were added in addition to this. Apparently they do not require a player to claim them, but can be invoked by the arbiter.
The FIDE basic rules of chess are the articles from 1 to 5. Look at the first page.
Article 9 comes under competition rules.