Chess solved?

[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
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!

Actually, you do need to win at least one piece (the game finishes before you actually take it, of course). At this time, despite being able to do bigger searches than ever before, we have not demonstrated the possibility of winning a piece.

[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?

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.

So do you actually agree that the following statement has no basis in fact?

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.

And why did you ask me for a counterexample when I asked you where you base that "knowledge" on? Just to troll a bit more?

[towforce]

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.

Unless I think that tree searching is not the way to solve chess (I have wondered if there's anything in graph theory that might help with two player games. Bill Tutte, the mathematician who cracked the Lorenz cipher by taking a "depth" sample and mapping it into two dimensional space, went on to become a big name in graph theory after the war. However, I don't think that graph theory has anything that's going to help with chess yet).

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.)

OK, so we can't do a full-width search to a depth of 30 yet, but it is still the case that we are looking more deeply from the opening position than ever before, and we have yet to see even a hint that it's possible to forcibly win material.

[mwyoung]

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.

This is what makes your head spin about people without any kind of logically thinking.

1. There is a theoretical limit to how fast you can make a computer.

2. And again since you do not what to address this most obvious flaw in your logic. In what rule of chess does it state you must win material. To force a win in a game of chess?

[d]7Q/2p1k1pp/1b1p4/pP2p3/P1B1P3/B1P2bPn/R2N1P1n/4RK2 w - - 0 23

[syzygy]

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.

Unless I think that tree searching is not the way to solve chess (I have wondered if there's anything in graph theory that might help with two player games. Bill Tutte, the mathematician who cracked the Lorenz cipher by taking a "depth" sample and mapping it into two dimensional space, went on to become a big name in graph theory after the war. However, I don't think that graph theory has anything that's going to help with chess yet).

So are you going to solve chess by showcasing that you have heard of a handful of mathematicians?

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.)

OK, so we can't do a full-width search to a depth of 30 yet, but it is still the case that we are looking more deeply from the opening position than ever before, and we have yet to see even a hint that it's possible to forcibly win material.

So???
If chess happens to be a draw, that makes it only harder to solve chess.

[towforce]

So do you actually agree that the following statement has no basis in fact?

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.

And why did you ask me for a counterexample when I asked you where you base that "knowledge" on? Just to troll a bit more?

I apologise if I came across as trolling. The point I was attempting to make was the same point that a famous scientist (maybe Stephen Hawking, I cannot remember) made about intelligent alien life: if it exists, then where is it? It should be everywhere in the galaxy by now (followed by calculations about life spreading through the galaxy).

So once again, briefly:

* we can search more deeply than ever before from the starting position

* no way (not even a hint of a way) to forcibly win material has been found

* my opinion is that there is no way to forcibly win material at any depth

* if that speculation is correct, then it is likely that chess is a drawn game

[syzygy]

So do you actually agree that the following statement has no basis in fact?

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.

And why did you ask me for a counterexample when I asked you where you base that "knowledge" on? Just to troll a bit more?

I apologise if I came across as trolling. The point I was attempting to make was the same point that a famous scientist (maybe Stephen Hawking, I cannot remember) made about intelligent alien life: if it exists, then where is it? It should be everywhere in the galaxy by now (followed by calculations about life spreading through the galaxy).

You are way too fond of mentioning irrelevancies. Fermi is the name you're looking for.

I'm not sure that you have a good grasp of the notion of "solving chess" in the logical/mathematical sense.

So once again, briefly:

* we can search more deeply than ever before from the starting position

* no way (not even a hint of a way) to forcibly win material has been found

* my opinion is that there is no way to forcibly win material at any depth

* if that speculation is correct, then it is likely that chess is a drawn game

Ok, now I am sure that you have no clue what it means to solve a game.

[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.

This is what makes your head spin about people without any kind of logically thinking.

Everybody's thinking is completely logical: it's just that, roughly speaking, their learning and processing is different to yours.

1. There is a theoretical limit to how fast you can make a computer.

2. And again since you do not what to address this most obvious flaw in your logic. In what rule of chess does it state you must win material. To force a win in a game of chess!

[d]7Q/2p1k1pp/1b1p4/pP2p3/P1B1P3/B1P2bPn/R2N1P1n/4RK2 w - - 0 23

It would be surprising if in chess, it's possible to force a win but not possible to force the win of material.

To me, it seems as though my "logic" (I would have said "thinking pattern") is to look at what's likely to be true in the big picture, whereas a slight issue in your thinking is that it keeps hitting bits and pieces of the (admittedly large) knowledge of chess that you have. I'm looking at the forest from above, you're in the trees.

Also, as stated before, you do actually have to win a piece to win chess (with 2 caveats: 1) you don't actually get to take it 2) the game can also end through resignation or refereeing decision).

[towforce]

So are you going to solve chess by showcasing that you have heard of a handful of mathematicians?

Yes - that's the entire basis of my case.

So???
If chess happens to be a draw, that makes it only harder to solve chess.

Somehow, two different discussions got mixed up here:

1. can chess be solved? (likely yes, because complex systems tend to have relatively simple emergent patterns)

2. is chess a draw? (likely yes: it seems to be converging to draws as standards of play rise, and if it's not a draw, then it's surprising that ever-deeper searches from the starting position have failed to uncover a way to forcibly win material)

[towforce]

So once again, briefly:

* we can search more deeply than ever before from the starting position

* no way (not even a hint of a way) to forcibly win material has been found

* my opinion is that there is no way to forcibly win material at any depth

* if that speculation is correct, then it is likely that chess is a drawn game

Ok, now I am sure that you have no clue what it means to solve a game.

OK - so either that's straw man argument, or you've missed the fact that two separate discussions are happening here:

1. can chess be solved?

2. is chess a draw?