Will computers ever solve chess?

First, I do not take bets unless the odds are quite a bit on my side. Do not take what i call "even odds".  I would not bet $1 on most anything as if i saw $1 on the street, it would not be benefical for me to pick it up.

  Of course, i could not bet on this situation anyway as chess would probably have to be solved to collect on the bet and that will not happen in my lifetime.

People who bet on sports want odds in their favor--however it rarely happens that the odds are in their favor--so most bettors lose.  I did bet  quite a bit on the last election as i thought the odds were in my favor. [and my bets worked]

Regarding your question in your first sentence. I am not really sure what you mean?  Don't you think, for instance, in the World Championship Matches of 100 years ago--White obtained a better score than White does now? 

Maybe you could give me examples of what you mean?   

Regarding my 99.99% estimate that chess is a draw. It is true that is very close to 100%  99.99% is as close to me knowing chess is a draw as i can get.

This upsets many people. Sorry........

I have had things happen to me that most would think there was less than one hundredth of 1 percent that they would happen to me. I could name several such things--but then that would upset some people even more...

i am used to very unusual things happening to me--so one hundreth of one percent means something to me! 

This is the part of computers solving chess that I wonder about. As people get better they seem to win more with white. And I think that's true of computers too. So if the percentage of draws goes up the higher the rating and the percentage of white wins goes up the higher the rating there has to be some point where something will happen. Maybe one of them will plateau and the other will take over. Or who knows, maybe both will plateau and a breakthrough happens and someone proves black can always win. But right now the fact that whites winning percentages keeps going higher isn't something I ignore.

In solved chess the entire concept of ‘slight’ or ‘moderate’ advantage disappears. Numeric positional analysis (+1.12 or -2.30, etc.) are meaninglessness. 

Every single position from from start to finish is either exactly 0.00 or Mate in X. 

Looking at cross tables of world championship events

First ICCF Correspondence

1st championship  winner had 3 draws out of 13 games  27.27%

 10th championship [taken at random] winner had 7 draws out of 15 games or 46.68% 

17th championship winner had 11 draws out of 16 games or 68.75%

 24th championship [most recent] winner had 10 draws out of 16  62.5%

Now going to over the board World Championships

Euwe Alekhine   winner had 11 out of 25 draws or 44%

Smyslov Botvinnik  winner had 10 out of 24 draws or 41.67%

Spasky Petrosian  winner had 17 draws out of 24 or 70.83%

Carlsen vs Karjakin [most recent] winner had 12 draws out of 16 or 75%

These stats were taken at random but including the most recent.

One can easily see something is going on here!  As players become stronger there are more draws.

It would be interesting if someone could look at ALL such world championship matches to see if there are similar stats.

i have noticed similar stats in current FIDE Correspondence events. You often see cross tables where some of the participants have ALL draws and the winner may have all draws except for 2 games.

  Can you really? As several of us have been trying to tell you, Patriot most recently, any of the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 could be ‘errors’, we just don’t know at this point in time.

This is interesting but i hope Elroch will give us some stats to see how this compares to more draws happening?  If he gives some examples or stats--i will certainly look into this!

People naturally win more with White as they get better at chess. The first 100 games i ever played [vs my dad] i lost all 50 games with White.

Then I got better and started winning from my dad and also i got better with winning with White.  From zero % to above 90%. [i also got better at winning with Black] I think it matters how strong is the person you are playing compared to your own strength? 

So, as one gains more chess knowledge -- it should be natural to be able to convert your slight advantage of the first move more often?

Anyway, this is of interest. ...

In fact at the very highest levels against equal or near equal opponents--The very best players often try to draw with Black and win with White.

I saw a tournament a year or two ago where there were about 12 or 14 players who could win the tournament if they could win in the very last round. However all those players drew in the last round. They knew how hard it would be to gamble on a win!

You apparently did not bother to read what i posted above. I did not say i could spot every error in every game.

"Actually i am able to spot errors. I do so all the time. Can I spot every single error in every game? no. But i would not have success in chess if i could not spot errors."

It is absolutely nuts to say i cannot spot errors in some chess positions!

You cannot spot errors in the begining of the game. Hence you cannot spot perfect games either, which is the object of this discussion.

BOOM.

Been said over and over, and ignored.

NONE of which demonstrates whether or not White has one or more forced wins out of all the 10^120 game variations. 

If anyone is going to list draw rates and trends thereof, please stick to 2006 on.  In terms of engines, anything earlier is the stone ages, and in terms of human players, anything prior to modern engine-assisted prep is not worth much.  Personally, I'd stick to the last 5 years.

Why? when the point being made is that as chess players [including chess engines] get stronger--the rate of draws goes up.

This point is harder to make if you decrease the time frame. [but it still can be made]

If there are no errors at the beginning of the game--of course errors cannot be spotted at the beginning of the game! If chess is a draw as many strong players believe it is, then there would likely be no errors at the beginning of the game.  [1. g4 might be an exception to this]

The trick is to spot errors at any stage of the game. 

That is correct--that one little fact does not prove anything. It is just one little piece of evidence. However as the evidence piles up it does tend to to give confidence that chess is a draw.

To have such high confidence as i have--it takes a whole lot of evidence piling up and all pointing the same way.

When you have a murder trial and the person on trial was known to be in the  house at the approximate time of the murder--this, in itself, does not prove he is guilty.

However as you gather evidence a find the person on trial had a $100,000 life insurance policy on the deceased--this is more evidence but not enough to convict.

If the person on trial owned a gun similar to the murder weapon--that is not enough to convict.

If the person on trial  had a gun on his person which turns out to be the murder weapon--that plus the other evidence may or may not be enough to convict.

If the person on  trial also confessed to the murder and taking all the other factors into consideration that may be or may not be enough to convict.

However if you are on the jury and sytematically ignore all the circumstantial evidence

--you really should not be on that jury.

I was thinking that when chess is a draw then white must have made an error because a win is a better outcome. So perhaps black shows stronger play because it managed to get a draw. 

You are not taking into consideration that while White has a small advantage in the opening--it is not  enough to force a win.

 However in a practical sense, in the vast majority of games played, you are correct that if White does not win--he probably made an error!?

Getting back to when i was playing with Ponziani Vote Chess Team...

At first there were only about 5 players and they lost a couple of games.

Then i joined the group and played and i also gave a whole lot of information about chess in general and also about the Ponziani Opening which i had studied for more than 30 years and co authored a book on that opening. Thus a lot of players joined Ponziani Power Vote Chess.

Our vote chess group had a huge advantage against every team we played. We got to play White every game. The other team was forced to play against our opening and most often the game was decided in the opening. We also had the advantage that we discussed in detail each move except the first 3 moves. The other teams did not do  this. We had other advantages also.

Our record, while i was there, was something like 11 wins and 1 loss or maybe 12 wins and 1 loss. This actually was a poor result considering the advantages we had. [we were accused of cheating anyway]

I remember one of the games we won was against The Bobby Fischer Group. That game was quite interesting and hard fought as they came up with an entertaining line. A line where there were forced moves for more than 10 moves. We finally won as we used one of my suggestions for playing such a line. That is to follow the forcing moves to the end and then see if there are more forcing moves--especially checks. There were and we won.

After the 12 or 13 games or so--i stopped my membership in that group. I had enough of the politics and there were personal reasons i stopped my membership.

After i got out a new person took over my spot as to leading the calculations of the games. I believe the very first game they played was another game against the Bobby Fischer Group.  Ponziani Power had a bad position [probably losing] vs the Bobby Fischer Group but they were accused of cheating on that game by outsiders. Also the Bobby Fischer Group was accused of cheating on that game by outsiders. 

I do not know if any cheating was going on or not?  I do know that they were playing into the Frasier Variation which is by far the most complicated variation in that opening. [and some of the main moves in that opening look very weird to someone who does not know the theory]

 I do not know if the person who took my place admitted to cheating or not?  That person had previously [before the game] received some information from me about the Frasier but did not follow my advice.

After that, i stopped playing vote chess except for one center counter game in a Scandinavian Group which we won and one game in a Benko Gambit Group which we lost.

Some time later, I joined another vote chess group. But soon after joining that group it was quite apparent to me that one of the members was cheating.  I told the super administrator but he did not believe me. So, i  quit that group in protest.

After i stopped playing in that group--about 6 months later--the person i said was cheating was found by chess.com to be a cheater. [i did not turn her in.] And thus that vote chess group decided to forfeit all of its current games going on.  This was 3 games forfeited. 

After all of that, i was invited to come back to the team and did. Recently have i geared down and am only playing about 10% to what i was doing. This is because of health problems which make it so i cannot spend hours on the very hard work of finding good moves?! [and my playing strength is not near what it used to be] 

So two computers going at it with perfect play would go on into infinity?

That's kinda like a draw-