With Best Play for both sides Chess is a Draw--So Why Do We Play?

quadriple you state:

"a series of perfect moves must lead to a must win position"

Not ever sure what your sentence means?  what is a "must win position"?

If you mean "a series of perfect moves must lead to a winning position"

Then you are wrong because if your opponent is also making perfect moves the game will end in a draw.
"

It sounds like a bar conversation and most have had too much to drink and should go home.

I don't see why "the best" has to be just one thing. If there is one thing greater than all the rest, sure. But if there happens to be more than one thing that shares the same value that is higher than all the rest, well, this doesn't in any way contradict the fact that they have the highest value that the world was able to produce.

Oh well, another definition battle. Wait a minute, I just thought of a brilliant fricken idea: Look the words up.

One reason [of several reasons] I came to the conclusion that most chess games there is a win by one side or the other by the 15th move was my experience, long ago, of winning more than 4000 games in a row. In more than 95% of those games I had a winning advantage by the 15th move.

As, you go up in playing stregth there is less chance of someone having a winning advantage by the 15th move. Grandmasters seldom are in such a situation.

That is seldom the case in chess.

Almost every sport with best play ends up with a draw, so lets stop with life! ;-) lol

What a hell of word quibbling is going on here !

Of course, one and only one of the three possible outcomes is the one that should occur in a game of chess perfectly played, and this is a fact, independant of whether we know which one.

Plus, there is some general agreement that it would probably be a draw.

But all that does not sum up to saying that "chess is a draw" is a fact. It might be, but it also might not be.

Let's say I tossed a coin. I am absolutely sure it landed of heads or tails. Plus, some people watched the coin from far away, and most of them think it ended of tails. This does not make the claim "it landed on tails" a fact.

The problem we have been having is the word "fact" has several definitions.

Posters are picking out their favorite definition of "fact" to prove a point but they do not realize that under another definition of "fact" somebody else may be correct.

"chess is a draw with best play" can be considered a "fact" under one of the definitions or maybe more than one definition of "fact"

Under other definitions of "fact" "chess is a draw" might not qualify as "fact" 

I believe chess is a draw with best play is a "reality" which is one of the definitions of "fact"

Regardless of these different definitions, if you ask the strongest players they, maybe 90%, will tell you chess is a draw with best play.

So, to me, with examing this question for decades and taking into account all my chess knowledge--chess is a draw. [and to me this is a "fact"]

To somebody else it is not a "fact" that chess is a draw.

So much mindless blather.  So many luxurious metaphors about evolution, religion, and God knows what else.  So many cut and paste exercises from the dictionary, and Wiki. It's breathtakingly dumb.

As for Game Theory, and the so-called concept of "perfect play" (which has turned this thread into the usual chess pinhead food fight), try reading something that teaches you how to think about these issues, and roots the development of game theory in the rise of the computer and "Cyborg Sciences" --

http://www.amazon.com/Machine-Dreams-Economics-Becomes-Science/dp/0521775264/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378040585&sr=1-2&keywords=machine+dreams

At least that way, you won't be going to the Dictionary to support your overworked, Freshman Logic 101, pinheaded assertions.

@Ponz111's claim is a simple appeal to authority and experience, among "experts" in the field of chess.  It's a (majority) belief among many of the cognoscente regarding the ultimate nature of the Royal Game.  Simple.

Everything else is this thread is just mindless labelling.

And if the never-to-be-proven-mathematically result doesn't arise in the next 1000 generations of mankind.  BFD.

Have a drink with your friends, instead.    

P.S.  We play the Royal Game for enjoyment, inter alia, and because it (seemingly) has infinite depth.

@Ponz111 asked a two-part question, did he not?  

I was not wrong in pointing out the the word "fact" has several different meanings and what is "fact" to one person thus may not be "fact" to another person. [it is silly to fault me for this]

I understand game theory .

I believe chess is a draw from my 64 years of playing the game.

Agree that we play chess for enjoyment and because it {seemingly} has infinite depth. There are also other reasons we play chess.

I mostly agreed with you, @Ponz111.  My pointed comments were specifically directly at the many hoi polloi of this thread.

Not that anyone ever listens to me.  

ponz111: did you see my post that analyzed the 4 slow-rated games I played this year and found none of them winning before move 16? I'm curious if that surprises you or you think that's expected for C-/B-class players.

I'm sure you're probably correct about D-class players, but it would be much better for you to state your belief as "most D-class games and below are winning by move 15", as that sounds very different than "most games are winning by move 15", and not very surprising at all.

I rarely take the "scientific approach" to chess as Sveshnikov has called it. This approach invariably leads to the conclusion that certain strategies are better than others and some barely playable. As someone that plays chess for the many possibilities in problem solving such conclusions are disheartening. Of course one is limited only by their current knowledge. But it can be difficult to move to new heights of understanding when you don't have the talent, mentors or peers to help you improve. At times I feel that I don't enjoy the game enough to improve and admittedly I indulge in openings far more than I should - not with a misguided belief of improvement but for a sense of newness that is easier to obtakn than with study. The irony in this is that I dislike opening theory. Maybe this is just ignorance.

But I think that's what keeps people playing. It's the idea that although you know there's an end you are nowhere near it and that alone makes chess infinite and therefore it's approaches infinite.

And that's a fact.

I know I haven't given my proof yet pass the deadline. Sorry, I have to finish programming a website.

But I follow this discussion.

It seems that chess is harder than "The Last Fermat Theorem" which is finally solved.

In the end, this "Chess Theorem" should also be able to be solved.

Can we agree that perfect play means all possible moves are exhausted before a move is made? That would take all the computer power in this world to do it more than finding a prime in 1000 digits.

Let say the outcome is different than a draw. To find  a losing move is easy, but to find a winning move in a perfect play is nearly impossible even by the most powerful computer.

Why? Since "perfect play" is made by computers or cyborgs which is more powerful than ever exist.

So these "perfect cyborgs" play against each other. If one of them loses, then it can not be labeled as "a perfect cyborg" anymore and has to be replaced.

Keep on doing this until all "imperfect cyborgs" are replaced with "perfect cyborgs". If all these "perfect cyborgs" still make losing moves, then "perfect play" doesn't exists. Hence the conclusion is we don't have a "perfect play". Since we don't have it, ....... Hence, Somebody has to continue my analysis from here. Please take over.

The topic is precisely why I like to play chess. It' fair; if you make a mistake, you lose, unlike in a game like poker, where even if you play everything perfectly, luck could still take you down.

The problem is that it's almost impossible to play every move perfectly, so there's more leeway for inaccuracy than what the topic suggests.

Or maybe Fischer would have given up chess since he knew the "perfect play" didn't exist.

I agree I could have worded the subject better to avoid all this. So I apologize for that. 

No. Repeating the fallacy even a thousand more times won't make it any less of the fallacy which it has been from square one, i.e. the first post of this thread.

Now that you keep insisting on the authority of chess masters being decisive in this case, here's a quote from a FIDE Master (page 7 of this thread), which apparently has been "conveniently" forgotten by those who are uncomfortable with it.

"Ponz, what you are stating is simply a belief, not a fact. And you would be surprised at how many strong players would not agree with your statement (therefore I find it funny you keep using it as an argument) :)"

* * *

There seems to be hardly anything more farfetched than trying to imply how "fact" can mean whatever one likes to claim being true, and how supposedly a fact "does not need to be proven" and "has nothing to do with knowledge". Here's another definiton (if you disagree, you're probably wiser than the authors of the dictionary, and hats off to you):

Noun: fact

1. A piece of information about circumstances that exist or events that have occurred; "first you must collect all the facts of the case"
2. A statement or assertion of verified information about something that is the case or has happened; "he supported his argument with an impressive array of facts"
3. An event known to have happened or something known to have existed; "your fears have no basis in fact"; "how much of the story is fact and how much fiction is hard to tell"
4. A concept whose truth can be proved; "scientific hypotheses are not facts"

On the other hand:

Noun: hunch

1. An impression that something might be the case

In the long run, a debate with those who cannot tell the two notions defined above apart sadly seems to be futile indeed, which is strongly indicated at by how most members who have been pointing out the fallacy being insisted upon by the OP and his like-minded fellows have since long left the moot discussion. No wonder, given that faced with logical explanations debunking the fallacy, the naysayers proceeded to excercise in sophistries, twisting things around, putting silly things in other people's mouths in an effort to discredit their argumentation, and, if all else failed, just repeating the fallacy ad nauseam, ignoring previously provided arguments uncomfortable to them.

To reiterate one last time:

The only thing which is known for a fact regarding the conclusion of a chess game played perfectly by both sides is that it is unknown whether it would be a draw, a win for White, or a win for Black.

Good night.