This is why chess will not be solved in the next 100 Years

[Chessqueen]

We know that computer are getting faster and faster, but 10 to the power of 120 possible variations which is an astronomical number only compared to the stars in our galaxy

[towforce]

Depends on what "solved" means: correspondence chess has already hit the death by draw problem.

AFAIK nobody has tried to generate a comprehensive list of conditions needed to be able to win material: there may be a proof that chess is drawn via that route. There may be other ways to solve chess mathematically.

Given that, even with the amount of computer power being thrown at the problem today, nobody has discovered a way to force the win of material from the opening position, it seems VERY likely that chess is drawn to me.

[Chessqueen]

Depends on what "solved" means: correspondence chess has already hit the death by draw problem.

AFAIK nobody has tried to generate a comprehensive list of conditions needed to be able to win material: there may be a proof that chess is drawn via that route. There may be other ways to solve chess mathematically.

Given that, even with the amount of computer power being thrown at the problem today, nobody has discovered a way to force the win of material from the opening position, it seems VERY likely that chess is drawn to me.

While IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer famously beat chess grand master Gary Kasparov, it has yet to solve the game. Researchers say we're still a long way off from a program that can solve chess. Chinook was able to solve checkers by focusing on the end game, where there are eight or fewer pieces on the board. Chess will be considered solved only and only when an engine that solved it play itself thousands of games and all games are drawn, like Checkers with Chinook https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... rs/534111/

[Uri Blass]

Depends on what "solved" means: correspondence chess has already hit the death by draw problem.

AFAIK nobody has tried to generate a comprehensive list of conditions needed to be able to win material: there may be a proof that chess is drawn via that route. There may be other ways to solve chess mathematically.

Given that, even with the amount of computer power being thrown at the problem today, nobody has discovered a way to force the win of material from the opening position, it seems VERY likely that chess is drawn to me.

While IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer famously beat chess grand master Gary Kasparov, it has yet to solve the game. Researchers say we're still a long way off from a program that can solve chess. Chinook was able to solve checkers by focusing on the end game, where there are eight or fewer pieces on the board. Chess will be considered solved only and only when an engine that solved it play itself thousands of games and all games are drawn, like Checkers with Chinook https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... rs/534111/

Some deterministic weak engine may draw against itself thousands of games by repeating the same line again and again.
It is not a proof of solving the game.

Some evidence of solving the game is by having some engine that it is practicallty impossible to beat
Considering the games when Stockfish lost at fast time control even after 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Qxf7+ I do not believe that it is impossible to beat stockfish but unfortunately it is very hard to do it and you need to push it to position that it does not understand that is not what happens in stockfish-stockfish games.

[Chessqueen]

Depends on what "solved" means: correspondence chess has already hit the death by draw problem.

AFAIK nobody has tried to generate a comprehensive list of conditions needed to be able to win material: there may be a proof that chess is drawn via that route. There may be other ways to solve chess mathematically.

Given that, even with the amount of computer power being thrown at the problem today, nobody has discovered a way to force the win of material from the opening position, it seems VERY likely that chess is drawn to me.

While IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer famously beat chess grand master Gary Kasparov, it has yet to solve the game. Researchers say we're still a long way off from a program that can solve chess. Chinook was able to solve checkers by focusing on the end game, where there are eight or fewer pieces on the board. Chess will be considered solved only and only when an engine that solved it play itself thousands of games and all games are drawn, like Checkers with Chinook https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... rs/534111/

Some deterministic weak engine may draw against itself thousands of games by repeating the same line again and again.
It is not a proof of solving the game.

Some evidence of solving the game is by having some engine that it is practicallty impossible to beat
Considering the games when Stockfish lost at fast time control even after 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Qxf7+ I do not believe that it is impossible to beat stockfish but unfortunately it is very hard to do it and you need to push it to position that it does not understand that is not what happens in stockfish-stockfish games.

That would be very easy to prove, lets say that X programmer claim in the future that he solved chess, of course all other programmers with their best engines will pit their engines against it, and if it wins the majorty of the games after playing thousands of games except for a few draw TA DA then we can conclude that it has solved chess.

[Uri Blass]

Depends on what "solved" means: correspondence chess has already hit the death by draw problem.

AFAIK nobody has tried to generate a comprehensive list of conditions needed to be able to win material: there may be a proof that chess is drawn via that route. There may be other ways to solve chess mathematically.

Given that, even with the amount of computer power being thrown at the problem today, nobody has discovered a way to force the win of material from the opening position, it seems VERY likely that chess is drawn to me.

While IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer famously beat chess grand master Gary Kasparov, it has yet to solve the game. Researchers say we're still a long way off from a program that can solve chess. Chinook was able to solve checkers by focusing on the end game, where there are eight or fewer pieces on the board. Chess will be considered solved only and only when an engine that solved it play itself thousands of games and all games are drawn, like Checkers with Chinook https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... rs/534111/

Some deterministic weak engine may draw against itself thousands of games by repeating the same line again and again.
It is not a proof of solving the game.

Some evidence of solving the game is by having some engine that it is practicallty impossible to beat
Considering the games when Stockfish lost at fast time control even after 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Qxf7+ I do not believe that it is impossible to beat stockfish but unfortunately it is very hard to do it and you need to push it to position that it does not understand that is not what happens in stockfish-stockfish games.

That would be very easy to prove, lets say that X programmer claim in the future that he solved chess, of course all other programmers with their best engines will pit their engines against it, and if it wins the majorty of the games after playing thousands of games except for a few draw TA DA then we can conclude that it has solved chess.

It is not a proof because maybe there is a way to beat the engine that other engines do not find.

I think that it is possible that by this definition stockfish14.1 at depth 40 solved chess.
Can engines beat stockfish14.1 with fixed depth 40 with no book?

[Chessqueen]

Depends on what "solved" means: correspondence chess has already hit the death by draw problem.

AFAIK nobody has tried to generate a comprehensive list of conditions needed to be able to win material: there may be a proof that chess is drawn via that route. There may be other ways to solve chess mathematically.

Given that, even with the amount of computer power being thrown at the problem today, nobody has discovered a way to force the win of material from the opening position, it seems VERY likely that chess is drawn to me.

While IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer famously beat chess grand master Gary Kasparov, it has yet to solve the game. Researchers say we're still a long way off from a program that can solve chess. Chinook was able to solve checkers by focusing on the end game, where there are eight or fewer pieces on the board. Chess will be considered solved only and only when an engine that solved it play itself thousands of games and all games are drawn, like Checkers with Chinook https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... rs/534111/

Some deterministic weak engine may draw against itself thousands of games by repeating the same line again and again.
It is not a proof of solving the game.

Some evidence of solving the game is by having some engine that it is practicallty impossible to beat
Considering the games when Stockfish lost at fast time control even after 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Qxf7+ I do not believe that it is impossible to beat stockfish but unfortunately it is very hard to do it and you need to push it to position that it does not understand that is not what happens in stockfish-stockfish games.

That would be very easy to prove, lets say that X programmer claim in the future that he solved chess, of course all other programmers with their best engines will pit their engines against it, and if it wins the majorty of the games after playing thousands of games except for a few draw TA DA then we can conclude that it has solved chess.

It is not a proof because maybe there is a way to beat the engine that other engines do not find.

I am still trying to figure out what you meant by maybe there is a way to beat the engine that other engines do not find. With checkers 8x8 checkers board with 12 pieces each side checkers is solved, the obvious question is whether chess is solvable. Checkers has roughly the square root of the number of positions in chess (somewhere in the 10 to the 120 power range instead of 10 to the power of 40 as it is in checkers). Therefore, given the effort required to solve checkers, chess will remain unsolved for a long time, barring the invention of new technology. since in an 8x8 checkers board was solved with 12 checkers pieces each side by chinook engine, but not the 10x10 checkers board with 20 checkers pieces ( Draughts) This game also observes a rule known as “Flying Kings.” Flying Kings can move across multiply squares as long as they are unoccupied, which remain unsolved, but in fact this solution was not made by a checkers engine. Instead of engine it was a very large database of all possible positions in 8x8 checkers. And the final result (if both sides play best moves) is a draw. Chess is much much harder. Nowadays a playing strength of the best chess engines is about 3650 ELO points (compared with current world champion Carlsen ELO, which is 2851). But still we don't know what is the final result of a chess game (assuming the best play of both sides) and I don't think we will know it in next 40-50 years. I believe that the final result of chess with perfect play is a draw

[jefk]

it's a draw

[Leo]

I like the soft solve approach. There is a massive amount of moves that you would never make in a game. Bad moves. Lets not waste time on solving chess with all the bad moves being calculated.

[hgm]

A huge game-tree size is no proof that the game cannot be solved. It just suggests that it might be difficult to solve the game by brute-force search.

Take for example the game of Nim. (For those who don't know it: a number of 'tokens' is distributen over a number of heaps, and two players take turns in removing as many tokens as they want (but at least 1) from a heap of their choice. He who takes the last token wins.) The game tree can be made arbitrariy complex by driving up the number of heaps and tokens. Yet there exists a simple algorithm to evaluate any state as win or loss without search.