Will computers ever solve chess?

  This ‘demonstration’ relies on ‘strong’ players. ‘If they have said it, it must be true.  

   So you start with the premise that chess is a draw—which is not a fact, but you are introducing a third party into the equation to give it more weight (it’s still a non-fact)—and then you are using that to support the view that most of the very first moves are not errors.

  But you are still presenting a non-fact as a fact, in order to demonstrate a fact, which is really a non-fact, since in the demonstration you relied on a non-fact but presented it as a fact. 

  Therefore, the demonstration contains an error, intentional or not. The conclusion remains: you cannot spot errors in the very beginning of the game of chess. 

  Basically you first acknowledge that errors cannot be spot in the beginning of the game, then you are contradicting that invoking strong players. But again, strong players now may be mere puppets in view of the future engines which might solve the game of chess. 

Find someone else to obsess over, Lawandorderking.  It's getting more embarrassing (for you, to be clear) every time you show up in a new (yet obvious) guise.  You're as bad as Tuna once was...hmmm...

A CM was leading the BFG votechess team. but was banned some ways into the game for cheating.  He had claimed to have analysis proving that the Fraser Defense was a sure bust for the Ponziani.  I should know, I was on the BFG team and tried to convince the team that The Fraser Defense seemed far to too linear, tactical, and complicated for use in a votechess game.  He was the highest rated team member, though, so...anyway, I quit all BFG votechess after that debacle.

The cohort you were referring to on Ponziani Power deactivated his own account never to return after the Cheating Forum thread highlighting this game.  He had claimed (just before his disappearing act) to be using an analysis (conveniently on a printout that he never scanned) that went 31 moves (not ply, full moves) out and covered all viable branches...ahem.  That would be a lot of paper.

Your posts on that thread are still there, but it's a lot to wade through, much like this thread.

A cautionary tale for any votechess team that believes in the existence of exhaustive offline analysis without pressing for details...

The Frasier is not a bust to the Ponziani. I am guessing the CM saw my exhibition games where I claimed a Bust to the Ponziani. This was after i left Ponziani Power and had a big disagreement with the Super Administrator.  [of course my "bust" was tongue in cheek!]  I wanted to explore the Frasier from the Black view point and challenged strong players with strong chess engines to play against me. Chess.com approved the games using chess engines and they were not rated. I pretty much "destroyed" the Ponziani using Black and using the Frasier with a bunch of wins and 1 or 2 draws.

However from playing these exhibition games, i was able to find lines that were ok  for White. [and in fact one vote chess team played the Frasier against the current team i am on and lost] 

Most sane players would not wish to play either side of the Frasier as it is so complicated. However i have the correct lines of play and those lines are published in my Ponziani Analysis group. [so now anyone who wants to play the Black side of the Frasier is at a disadvantage if he is playing against anyone in our Ponziani Analysis group] [by the way membership is open for any class A player or above who is interested in the Ponziani]  

i got disgusted with people calling the Ponziani Power Vote Chess team as "cheaters" as they were not following the original guidelines of the person who first wrote how to detect cheating. We did not cheat for the 12 or 13 games i was there. We had a slew of advantages against other teams [not even considered by the ones crying "cheater"] and that is why we had a good [but not perfect] record.      

C44: Ponziani, Fraser defence
A.K.A.
Ponziani Opening, Vukovic Gambit (C44)

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3 Nf6 4.d4 Nxe4 5.d5 Bc5 6.dxc6 Bxf2 7.Ke2 Bb6 8.Qd5 Nf2

Stockfish 9 at a depth of 37 ply, after 8...Nf2, evaluates 9.Rg1 with total equality (=0.00). 9.cxb7 is evaluated at (-0.17), but all other moves are evaluated as conferring advantage to Black, for example p.v. #3 (-1.30) 9.Qxe5+.

Ponziani as with all normal openings comes out equal in some lines. This is one more small piece of evidence that chess is a draw.

The problem [for both sides with the Frasier] is that after 8. Qd5  Nf2

there are dozens of lines for both sides, the very best lines [notice i said "lines" not line] come out equal but  if either side varys just a little bit--[from the "best" lines"] the side that varys will probably lose. 

Who do you think will know these very complicated lines--the Ponziani player or the player trying to play against the Ponziani? 

  Or you avoid such an opening altogether, case closed.

Whenever someone ends a sentence with "case closed" this tells me a whole lot about the person.

So you think people who respond to 1. e4 should avoid the 1. ...e5 response as they might be afraid of the Ponziani?  

When we are trying to find a forced win for White--don't we have to look at all possible continuations???--which would mean we would have to "solve" chess to determine 100% that chess is whatever it is?--and thus you would never get to the possibility that Black can force a win? 

Whereas Hans Berliner (1.d4)  and Weaver Adams (1.e4) each sought after a forced win for White, the idea that "Black is Winning After All" [Dynamic Chess Strategy, Suba] is worth mention in this context.

From Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy, Advances Since Nimzowtisch by John Watson

Chapter 11. Time and Information (p.231)
"[Mihai] Șubă explains: 'Chess is a game of complete information, and Black's information is always greater - by one move!' [Dynamic Chess Strategy, Suba]
...
This is Suba's main point; chess is a reactive game, in which all moves are committal and thus in some sense helpful to the opponent.
...
Of course, one can also carry things too far. Not all information is useful; for example, it doesn't help you to know that you are facing unavoidable mate; and even knowledge that your opponent is trying to force weaknesses in your position may not be enough to prevent him from succeeding."

These considerations are especially relevant in the context of whether White can obtain a greater advantage by using a 'reversed opening' rather than the classical attempts for advantage via 1.e4 or 1.d4.

Yes.

Checkers has been "weakly solved" meaning that both the end result and a strategy to achieve the end result are known but all possible variations have not been computed.
https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/publications/solving_checkers.html

  Wrong reason. It just seems that 1...c5 is a stronger reply, and so the question of the Ponziani doesn’t come up.

Showing a win for white would solve chess. However, you should know you don't need to analyse every continuation: at minimum only one white move needs to be examined each time. This is what made solving checkers possible.

 It is amusing how such an inaccurate first post has led to a discussion that has lasted four years!

  Alpha Zero did not solve chess.

    Did it calculate all the variants? Not even close.

It learned something by playing against itself for 4 hours. And it learned even more while playing the World Champion among engines, in the-best-of-100 games match.

The way to prove that Alpha Zero didn't solve chess is to find a game where it lost while playing white. Someone who says Alpha Zero didn't solve chess should produce a game with that outcome. If he did then he'd be totally correct.

  It learns fast. Other engines compute far more than alpha, but mechanically. Perhaps alpha does it more like humans, memorizing logical connections between the moves being stored in memory, but much faster and with a bigger storage capacity than humans.

  Still, the number of possibilities is still astronomical.