1.g4 opening is losing?

[jp]

Not sure what to add. Hope my point is clear to others, and that someone else can expressed it better.

It seems your point is that since you're unable to use engines to do something, that you assume nobody is.

The real point is: nothing a centaur can come up with gets anywhere near an informal proof, so just call it a "formal belief", which you've given your definition of, and everyone will be happy.

[Ovyron]

No, the real point is that you don't need proof at all to know what to play and reach your objectives. Imagine that Zenmastur comes back with a mate score for the 20men position, and it's a mate in 81, are you going to point out that it was outside of Zenmastur's predicted range? Or that that's no proof because with more depth the mate score could suddenly vanish?

Proofs aren't useful or relevant, if 1.g4 turned out to be a draw with perfect play but nobody from the white side can ever find the drawing continuation, then I'd say it loses by force, because there's no practical difference, and that's the difference between chess analysts (like zullil and you) and chess players (like Zenmastur and me), you can spend all the day in your laboratory analyzing chess positions without ever concluding anything because nothing will convince you other than a solved chess tree. We can spend a few minutes or hours, or days analyzing some variation, and "magically" tag their mainlines to conclude if it's won or not, to win games in practice. That's what the truth in chess is about, not what 32men tablebases would show.

[jp]

Of course, proofs are useful and relevant.
If I had a 32-man TB, it'd be both proof and make me unbeatable.

But their usefulness and relevance aren't the issue. The issue is that you grossly underestimate the uncertainties in your formal beliefs. That's why if you just call it a formal belief, everyone will be happy.

[Ovyron]

If I had a 32-man TB, it'd be both proof and make me unbeatable.

But you can't, so those discussions are irrelevant. What if I had a computer from year 3030? Maybe I could be able to defeat with it any person currently in the world. Do we discuss that? No, it's a fairy tale, just like 32men TB.

The only things useful or relevant to discuss are things that work in practice, so the key word in these discussions is not "formal" or "belief", it's "practically"...

1.g4 opening is *practically* losing?

If in practice nobody can save it, then that should be enough to answer "Yes, it's losing", and what 32men TB say about it doesn't matter, just like what a computer from year 3030 would play as a defense doesn't matter. Maybe it could save 1.g4, but we're not going to wait 110 years.

[jp]

If you want to change to looking at what's "practically" possible, you're free to do so. You'd need to specify under what conditions, though.

"Practically" is probably not what the OP was asking, but that's okay, as long as you don't blur the lines.

[Ovyron]

Is Jouni following this thread? Maybe he can clarify. But please, take a look at his post where he asked the question:

When I played 30 games between SF10 and SFdev 16 games were 0-1 (here 10 first). Other games were draws. Does this indicate, that 1.g4 is losing move? BTW in TCEC superfinal 12 SF and Komodo each won with black after 1.g4.

He brings up practical things, like games between engines at reasonable time controls (even corr time controls become unreasonable as you increase the number of games), and TCEC superfinal (2 games! That's as practical as you can get.)

He doesn't mention the theoretical result of the game (which can't be known), 32men TBs (which can't be produced) or even perfect play (now, it's possible perfect play could be done, but ironically, the people that could play 1.g4's perfect defense, like Harvey or Zenmastur, think that 1.g4 is losing so they're not interested in defending it. It's possible mmt or me are playing already 1.g4's perfect defense, but if the move loses any white defense is going to look like those games.)

Let me then try to rephrase his question in a way that can be discussed and attempts to maintain the question's spirit:

If white played 1.g4 and played the strongest moves that can be found, and black played the strongest moves that can be found, what would be the result of the game?

This rules out 32men TBs or hypothetical perfect play (if we can't check if it's indeed perfect), formal proofs or full game trees of the game of chess (as they'd include positions that we can't find, or store.) Just what would be the outcome of the game at the highest possible level.

[jp]

If you look at the start of the thread, it's pretty clear that no one was talking about "practically".
e.g. very early in the thread, we see this.

What do you consider proof?

a tree that show a forced mate in all lines is certainly a proof.

[Ovyron]

My claim is that most of the last 18 pages of the thread were wasted discussing a proof that can't be obtained. If we're going to continue discussing for another 18 pages we better discuss something that matters (such as if it's possible to find a drawing line for 1.g4.)

[jp]

My suggestion is: if Black wins the current game, persuade Zenmastur to take White in the next game.

[Ovyron]

I'd rather see Zenmastur being persuaded to play the black side against a challenger that believes they can save 1.g4. Because if there's nobody remaining that believes 1.g4 can be saved, we're done.

We're at the point (or... we'd be, if I win) at which helping openly white to draw could be allowed, imagine some sort of "Talkchess Forum Vs. Zenmastur: The Grob" challenge game, where everyone else in the forum attempts to save 1.g4 against him. If everyone else's resources put together can't save it, that'd put the final nail on the coffin for me.