My 17 year old son, who has a highly rationalistic mindset, says that chess is just a more complex version of tic tac toe, for the reason that it could be solved. Personally I don't think it would ruin the game for me, although I suppose knowing which opening leads to the solution could have some impact.
When Chess gets "Solved"...
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Get him to play some games and ask him again. 
Sounds like you've not been beating him hard enough! In chess, that is...
Cheater_1: I didn't know even dirt was invented by the human mind, but thanks- I'm going to check to make sure the patent is expired, then I'm claiming it and charging the hell out of everyone who isn't standing on a frozen lake.
I agree with the theory that the solution with be an algorithim or an equation or whatever. But I don't think it will be so simple or small enough so that people could use it in play. Therefore I think the game will not be ruined.
I think, oppositely, solving chess would make for great improvements in human players because of the new perfect computer suggestions. Evolution will have reached its end and we would be able to study the final result.
There will probably myriads of new superior techniques to analyze and discuss, therefore I think there might be a huge explosion in popularity.
Zredfire wrote:
Lilith wrote:
If chess is ever solved then their is one way of making it interesting again. Let Black have the first move and we can start all the analysis from zero. :) If that happened, wouldn't you only have to replay the exact moves, except symetrical?
heh, I think that would make no difference :)
lol
maybe if that happens fisher random will become a lot more popular and proberly the main way to play chess.
johnny263 wrote:
2 things i don't believe: 1) if they solve regular chess, it doesn't mean they solve random starting chess - i think it definitely does mean they solve regular chess. whatever method used to solve chess (an equation, a database of positions, etc.), could be used to solve random starting chess. 2) There are more chess positions than atoms in the universe - i'm assuming you're counting every pawn and all possible pieces it can promote to and all possible places those pieces can go, but even then, i doubt that's true.
well stated.....here here
There is one thing I believe:
CHESS is the only form of chess, I think all the other variations are pointless.
I think I gotta disagree with one comment made:
http://static.chess.com/images/icons/custom/quote.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: #d7d7d0; color: #444444; padding-top: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; display: block; background-position: 4px 4px; margin: 6px; border: 1px solid #bcbcb3;">johnny263 wrote: ... 2) There are more chess positions than atoms in the universe - i'm assuming you're counting every pawn and all possible pieces it can promote to and all possible places those pieces can go, but even then, i doubt that's true." More chess positions than atoms in the universe?! Consider, for instance, DNA... there are billions of atoms in each human strand of DNA, in each cell... and trillions of cells in each human's body... and billions of humans on earth. And DNA only constitutes a tiny part of a human's body, and humans only constitute a tiny part of earth, which is a miniscule component of the entire universe. There is no way, whatsoever, that there are "more chess positions than atoms in the universe," not even more positions than atoms on earth.
SK-B wrote:
My 17 year old son, who has a highly rationalistic mindset, says that chess is just a more complex version of tic tac toe, for the reason that it could be solved. Personally I don't think it would ruin the game for me, although I suppose knowing which opening leads to the solution could have some impact.
Yes, and humans are much more complex versions of a yeast cells, so what?
Sep 7, 2008
0
#72
HEY REDBLACK REDEMPTION....you are absolutely correct: it is a PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY. I have seens statements like that made before and I just dismiss the people that make them as DOPES. They are made by people who simply cannot comprehend large number and just make a blanket statement to describe some impossibly large number.
Think of the universe as a 24 ounce glass. You cannot put something that is BIGGER than the capacity of the glass into the glass. It's impossible. Just as it's impossible to make something work at 110% (I also HATE that statment), because 100% is the TOP number. So is it with chess. An element of chess (number of total moves) cannot even be a teeeny tiny percentage of the atoms in the universe. If something, anything, existed that even approached the number of atoms in the universe, then the universe would EXPLODE.
Perhaps I am taking this too literally, but I take it seriously. The total number of moves in chess is HUGE, no doubt, but one day that number will be viewed as TINY when our computing power catches up. The commodore 64 was a POWERHOUSE in its day, now it is used as a boat anchor.
WITHIN A HUNDRED YEARS, every single possible chess move will be stored on a microchip the size of a pinhead. TRUST ME ON THAT ONE. Anyone can buy that microchip for $3.99 and plug it into some free chess GUI and INSTANTLY play PERFECT chess just as we now can do with checkers.
FRITZ and RYBKA and CHESSMASTER and all the other programs will be JUNK. 1000s of programmers will be out of a job. Chess will go the way of the 8track tape. Chess will become as popular as TIDDLYWINKS.
Mark my words.
Sep 7, 2008
0
#73
With perfect play it seems reasonable to believe that every game will be a draw well before 500 ply is reached. If quantum computers ever get off the ground, run the latest chess engine for a couple of minutes and it will tell you how the game should end if it is played perfectly.
Save this information to a disk, and repeat until you cover every single position that a chess game could lead to. So pretty much IMO if quantum computers become a possibility and can be sufficiently miniaturized, then chess will indeed be solvable. However if quantum computers prove to be unable to be built (which I doubt will happen), there is a limit to how much we can miniaturize which limits the amount we can increase computers speeds. Therefore I doubt that chess could ever be solved on classic computers.
Sep 7, 2008
0
#74
...and I'll still have crabgrass in my front yard (allusion to my previous post on page 2 for those of you who are puzzled).
It doesn't matter. If they solve it, big deal. My USCF rating will still suck and I'll still enjoy the game anyway. I just won't bother playing against a computer because it would be pointless (even more pointless than it is now, which is pretty damned pointless). Grandmasters probably wouldn't waste their time, neither. I mean... why? So they could brag that they last 42 moves?
I do support the idea of solving chess, but only from a standpoint of the mathematical and technological challenge. It would be a huge feather in the cap of mathematics and technology to be able to say we (as a society) did it. It is important from that aspect. But I don't think it will "kill" the game any more than the solution for checkers killed checkers. (Let's face it, checkers was dead long before it was solved. LOL)
As for chess having more possible positions than there are atoms in the universe, well, I believe that statement dates back to a time when when scientists didn't have a true understanding of just how gigantic the universe is. Most people don't. It's difficult for most people to comprehend humongous numbers. Why do you think so many people play the Lotto?
agreed.
There is no solution to chess and there is no perfect play. All we have is our god given hands.
chess must have a solution
cheater_1 wrote:
HEY REDBLACK REDEMPTION....you are absolutely correct: it is a PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY. I have seens statements like that made before and I just dismiss the people that make them as DOPES. They are made by people who simply cannot comprehend large number and just make a blanket statement to describe some impossibly large number. Think of the universe as a 24 ounce glass. You cannot put something that is BIGGER than the capacity of the glass into the glass. It's impossible. Just as it's impossible to make something work at 110% (I also HATE that statment), because 100% is the TOP number. So is it with chess. An element of chess (number of total moves) cannot even be a teeeny tiny percentage of the atoms in the universe. If something, anything, existed that even approached the number of atoms in the universe, then the universe would EXPLODE.
The number of ways you can rearrange the number of atoms in the universe is greatly more than the number of atoms in the universe.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wait out the universe's impending explosion by hiding under my desk.
Sep 16, 2008
0
#79
machines can beat humans in the 100m sprint - but it doesn't stop humans competing against each other in the 100m sprint. I don't see any difference.
Sep 16, 2008
0
#80
cheater_1 wrote:
HEY REDBLACK REDEMPTION....you are absolutely correct: it is a PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY. I have seens statements like that made before and I just dismiss the people that make them as DOPES. They are made by people who simply cannot comprehend large number and just make a blanket statement to describe some impossibly large number. Think of the universe as a 24 ounce glass. You cannot put something that is BIGGER than the capacity of the glass into the glass. It's impossible. Just as it's impossible to make something work at 110% (I also HATE that statment), because 100% is the TOP number. So is it with chess. An element of chess (number of total moves) cannot even be a teeeny tiny percentage of the atoms in the universe. If something, anything, existed that even approached the number of atoms in the universe, then the universe would EXPLODE. Perhaps I am taking this too literally, but I take it seriously. The total number of moves in chess is HUGE, no doubt, but one day that number will be viewed as TINY when our computing power catches up. The commodore 64 was a POWERHOUSE in its day, now it is used as a boat anchor. WITHIN A HUNDRED YEARS, every single possible chess move will be stored on a microchip the size of a pinhead. TRUST ME ON THAT ONE. Anyone can buy that microchip for $3.99 and plug it into some free chess GUI and INSTANTLY play PERFECT chess just as we now can do with checkers. FRITZ and RYBKA and CHESSMASTER and all the other programs will be JUNK. 1000s of programmers will be out of a job. Chess will go the way of the 8track tape. Chess will become as popular as TIDDLYWINKS. Mark my words.
According to Wikipedia "the number of legal positions in chess is estimated to be between 1043 and 1050, with a game-tree complexity of approximately 10123 ". (This is an estimate of the number of positions we would have to evaluate in a minimax search to determine the value of the initial position.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess
Also, according to wikipedia "two back-of-the-envelope calculations give the number of atoms in the observable universe to be around 1080 ".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe
So there are more atoms in the universe than there are legal chess positions, BUT for calculation purposes, which would have to be performed in order to "solve" chess, there are many more possible moves than atoms in the universe.
Lilith wrote:
If chess is ever solved then their is one way of making it interesting again. Let Black have the first move and we can start all the analysis from zero. :)
If that happened, wouldn't you only have to replay the exact moves, except symetrical?