I think it is almost conclusive that chess canNOT be solved.

[S.Taylor]

If the only way to conclusively solve chess was through brute force over enough plies, (notwithstanding SOME obvious pruning) then I think it is obvious that this will never be done.

Therefore the question is if there is a any other way.

Obviously, chess can be maximised more than it has been right now.
Rybka still has more work.

But will it be more than that? Or will it just be similar to what we know, and a little better? And maybe few little surprises, but not too much?

The only other way to "solve" chess, is if a great great genius would come along, and explain it all, and if HE would see clearly what does it, then maybe he could categorize it down to a science.

HE would obviously need to see it all very clear, to the end.

(Maybe some did see it all, but we don't know. Maybe Botvinik or Capablanca or Fisher undersrtood some things, but not everhything. Someone needs to tell us what Botvinik got right and what he didn't).

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

If the only way to conclusively solve chess was through brute force over enough plies, (notwithstanding SOME obvious pruning) then I think it is obvious that this will never be done.

Therefore the question is if there is a any other way.

Obviously, chess can be maximised more than it has been right now.
Rybka still has more work.

But will it be more than that? Or will it just be similar to what we know, and a little better? And maybe few little surprises, but not too much?

The only other way to "solve" chess, is if a great great genius would come along, and explain it all, and if HE would see clearly what does it, then maybe he could categorize it down to a science.

HE would obviously need to see it all very clear, to the end.
(Maybe some did see it all, but we don't know. Maybe Botvinik or Capablanca or Fisher undersrtood some things, but not everhything. Someone needs to tell us what Botvinik got right and what he didn't).

No human being is capable of such a task

[kranium]

If the only way to conclusively solve chess was through brute force over enough plies, (notwithstanding SOME obvious pruning) then I think it is obvious that this will never be done.

Therefore the question is if there is a any other way.

Obviously, chess can be maximised more than it has been right now.
Rybka still has more work.

But will it be more than that? Or will it just be similar to what we know, and a little better? And maybe few little surprises, but not too much?

The only other way to "solve" chess, is if a great great genius would come along, and explain it all, and if HE would see clearly what does it, then maybe he could categorize it down to a science.

HE would obviously need to see it all very clear, to the end.

(Maybe some did see it all, but we don't know. Maybe Botvinik or Capablanca or Fisher undersrtood some things, but not everhything. Someone needs to tell us what Botvinik got right and what he didn't).

are you serious? chess is a finite entity...
i.e. there's only so many possibilities...yes it's a huge #, but no matter.

just like the human DNA genome sequence (also a huge #) the math will be revealed, the variations mapped...chess can and will be eventually solved by computers.

for every possible position there will be known 'best' move(s)...
(the opening is already very well known, egtb has just about 'solved' the endgame...)
middle game positions will be mapped, i.e. mate in 36? etc.

processors are increasing in speed and calculating power every year at exponential rates...

the only hope to delay this eventuality, is fisher random which bumps the number up quite significantly, but this will only delay the inevitable.

it's not a matter of 'if', simply a matter of 'when'.

[Zlaire]

for every possible position there will be known 'best' move(s)...
(the opening is already very well known, egtb has just about 'solved' the endgame...)
middle game positions will be mapped, i.e. mate in 36? etc.

There is a very real limit to how many positions can be stored (mapped). There simply isn't enough matter on the earth (or in the universe) to store all legal chess positions.

Even if one position would take one atom to store, there wouldn't be enough atoms.

So something very drastical would have to happen in order to solve chess in the way you propose.

[kranium]

for every possible position there will be known 'best' move(s)...
(the opening is already very well known, egtb has just about 'solved' the endgame...)
middle game positions will be mapped, i.e. mate in 36? etc.

There is a very real limit to how many positions can be stored (mapped). There simply isn't enough matter on the earth (or in the universe) to store all legal chess positions.

Even if one position would take one atom to store, there wouldn't be enough atoms.

So something very drastical would have to happen in order to solve chess in the way you propose.

there are more (possible) chess positions than atoms in the universe?
are you sure about that?
<:

shannon calculated 10 to the 120th chess positions

envision this:
an extremely large disk farm with millions (or billions) of terabytes disk storage
incredibly efficient compression algoritms
a chess algoritm that has the ability to calculate the 'best' move in any position (moves to mate?, perhaps something similar to egtb?, maybe even brute force calculation...although this would certainly overwhelm any super computers that exist today) this is the unknown part i think

eventually anyone could access the database to 'lookup' the best move in any position

that's what i envision for the future... (near future?...probably not)

[Sylwy]

The solved chess = 64 men EGTBS (an axiom )

Solving chess today requires:

-a lot of PCs ;
-a lot of time;
-a lot of hoarding capacity.

That's all !
...................................


Regards,
Silvian

[Sylwy]

The solved chess = 64 men EGTBS (an axiom )

Solving chess today requires:

-a lot of PCs ;
-a lot of time;
-a lot of hoarding capacity.

That's all !
...................................


Regards,
Silvian

Sorry,
32 men EGTBS

Easy ??????

Silvian

[Zlaire]

there are more (possible) chess positions than atoms in the universe?
are you sure about that?

Perhaps not the universe (10^79 atoms or so), but the earth consists of about 10^50 atoms which is about the same as the number of legal chess positions.

So basically you'd need a harddrive the size of the earth to store them all, if every position took one atom to store (including best move).

[F.Huber]

there are more (possible) chess positions than atoms in the universe?
are you sure about that?
<:

shannon calculated 10 to the 120th chess positions

Well, since the number of atoms in our universe is about 10^80, you would still need 10^40 parallel-universes to store them all.

[Sylwy]

In our days the pioneers work to 7 men EGTBS.
Don't be depressed please !

The best chess engines of our days (Rybka,Naum.....) are only shortcuts to the final solution of chess game !

Silvian