Chess solved?

[Vinvin]

You're wrong. You "think that chess is draw", that's very different from "chess is proof as draw".

We COULD prove that neither side can force any material gain in the first N moves (2*N ply) by brute force. How many moves (or ply) can we prove that to right now? Anyone happen to know?

Theoretically there can be around 24 (2*12) balance piece exchanges and find a win 40 moves later. That could lead over 1000 moves.
But that would a very extreme case.
If there's a forced win it would be a very bad luck if the win is not detected before 300 moves.

But as there's no proof for anything we can speculate about a lot of things

[syzygy]

You're wrong. You "think that chess is draw", that's very different from "chess is proof as draw".

We COULD prove that neither side can force any material gain in the first N moves (2*N ply) by brute force. How many moves (or ply) can we prove that to right now? Anyone happen to know?

Do you know the number of nodes needed to get to d ply? (Hint: look it up in TAOCP.)

[towforce]

You're wrong. You "think that chess is draw", that's very different from "chess is proof as draw".

We COULD prove that neither side can force any material gain in the first N moves (2*N ply) by brute force. How many moves (or ply) can we prove that to right now? Anyone happen to know?

Theoretically there can be around 24 (2*12) balance piece exchanges and find a win 40 moves later. That could lead over 1000 moves.
But that would a very extreme case.
If there's a forced win it would be a very bad luck if the win is not detected before 300 moves.

One thing we can can say is that if 24 pieces were removed from the board, we'd then be close to tablebase range (though it would actually be almost impossible to get that far by crunching out the entire game tree).

But as there's no proof for anything we can speculate about a lot of things

We're not quite devoid of proof: we know that it's not possible to force material gain in the first 30 or so moves from the starting position. We didn't know that in the last century.

[syzygy]

We're not quite devoid of proof: we know that it's not possible to force material gain in the first 30 or so moves from the starting position. We didn't know that in the last century.

Where do you get that idea from? We certainly do not know that.

[towforce]

You're wrong. You "think that chess is draw", that's very different from "chess is proof as draw".

We COULD prove that neither side can force any material gain in the first N moves (2*N ply) by brute force. How many moves (or ply) can we prove that to right now? Anyone happen to know?

Do you know the number of nodes needed to get to d ply? (Hint: look it up in TAOCP.)

I've read "The Art Of Computer Programming", but I don't have my own copy. It's about time they put it online as a work of historical importance.

The fact is that, courtesy of Moore's Law etc, we can now look deeper than ever before from the starting position, and there's still no way to force material gain. It seems reasonable to speculate (as I do), that we will never find a way to force material gain, because there is no way. Without there being a way to force material gain, chess is probably a draw.

[towforce]

We're not quite devoid of proof: we know that it's not possible to force material gain in the first 30 or so moves from the starting position. We didn't know that in the last century.

Where do you get that idea from? We certainly do not know that.

If it's possible to make material gain early from the opening position, then where's the sequence of moves that achieves it?

[syzygy]

We're not quite devoid of proof: we know that it's not possible to force material gain in the first 30 or so moves from the starting position. We didn't know that in the last century.

Where do you get that idea from? We certainly do not know that.

If it's possible to make material gain early from the opening position, then where's the sequence of moves that achieves it?

Do you understand the difference between knowing that something is true and not having a counterexample?

[mwyoung]

You're wrong. You "think that chess is draw", that's very different from "chess is proof as draw".

We COULD prove that neither side can force any material gain in the first N moves (2*N ply) by brute force. How many moves (or ply) can we prove that to right now? Anyone happen to know?

Do you know the number of nodes needed to get to d ply? (Hint: look it up in TAOCP.)

I
The fact is that, courtesy of Moore's Law etc, we can now look deeper than ever before from the starting position, and there's still no way to force material gain.

This is flawed logic. And the reason is simple. The scale of the calculation. You can make computers 1 billion times faster then today. And it still does not move the needle verses the scale of the calculation. And another obvious flaw is, who said you need to gain material to win the game!

[syzygy]

You're wrong. You "think that chess is draw", that's very different from "chess is proof as draw".

We COULD prove that neither side can force any material gain in the first N moves (2*N ply) by brute force. How many moves (or ply) can we prove that to right now? Anyone happen to know?

Do you know the number of nodes needed to get to d ply? (Hint: look it up in TAOCP.)

I've read "The Art Of Computer Programming", but I don't have my own copy. It's about time they put it online as a work of historical importance.

The fact is that, courtesy of Moore's Law etc, we can now look deeper than ever before from the starting position, and there's still no way to force material gain. It seems reasonable to speculate (as I do), that we will never find a way to force material gain, because there is no way. Without there being a way to force material gain, chess is probably a draw.

From someone with the audacity to go around suggesting that he has the key to "solving chess", I would at the very least expect some basic knowledge about tree searching.

In the best case, i.e. if you are always able to search the best move first, you need to look at about 2*b^(d/2) nodes to search d ply, where b is the branching factor.

If you take b=30 (which is somewhat conservative for chess), you need to look at 2*30^10 = 1.18 * 10^15 positions to search 10 moves (20 ply) deep. To search 20 moves deep, you need to look at 6.97 * 10^29 positions. For 30 moves deep, you need to look at 4.12 * 10^44 positions. (A hash table will help a bit.)

[towforce]

We're not quite devoid of proof: we know that it's not possible to force material gain in the first 30 or so moves from the starting position. We didn't know that in the last century.

Where do you get that idea from? We certainly do not know that.

If it's possible to make material gain early from the opening position, then where's the sequence of moves that achieves it?

Do you understand the difference between knowing that something is true and not having a counterexample?

Two facts that are factual:

1. As long as something like Moore's Law holds, we continue to be able to do bigger tree searches as time passes

2. No way has yet been found of winning material from the starting position

That forced win of material from the starting position is not possible at any depth is speculation on my part, not fact - but I feel confident that it's correct.