Computers will NEVER solve chess...

There are more combinations and chess positions than there are ATOMS in the known UNIVERSE, yes you heard that right.

No super computer could ever EVER solve that.

So let's end this kind of topic once and for all.

.. Au, contraire ! .. This 'thread' employs the word, 'Never'. - Aside, from the mental 'dullness' associated, with 'buying into', Any number of assertions, pertaining to 'Never' ..{as in 'eons-upon-eons', without end} ; Computer 'programs' have for the past decade, {minimum} ; Demonstrated, the ability, to both 'think' on their own, {'fed' with the proper algorithms} ; And, even 'invent' New 'Go', {or 'weiqi'}, strategies !

I take it, that you're largely unaware, that the current world 'Go', {boardgame}, Chinese, champion, {a more complicated game, 'btw'} .. Was just about, Totally flummoxed, {& summarily 'beaten'}, in an arranged 'match'; By, his 'Google', 'AI', counterpart ; Within, the past 9 months !

In any event ; The thought that, an 'artificial intelligence', 'chess'- challenger ; Would needfully, need to 'sift' through, each-and-every, 'move' permutation ; In order to reign Supreme ; Has already, been shown, to be a fallacy ! .. End-of-'Story'.

Hilarious

PieceOfPoo wrote:

LeonSKennedy992 wrote:

There are more combinations and chess positions than there are ATOMS in the known UNIVERSE, yes you heard that right.

No super computer could ever EVER solve that.

So let's end this kind of topic once and for all.

and for the record, you are a terrible, yet very pretty, troll. You want to go to Starbucks with me, and have a couple of pumpkin spice lattes while we look into each others eyes, and you tell me that I'm the most handsomest piece of poo 💩you ever met? Hmm?

Krudsparov

Lol, now there's a guy who knows how to make a lady feel special, I can't imagine anyone turning you down with that chat up line.

i can predict the future as well.

I disagree with this one. I think computer would be able to solve chess, just no one wants to put money and time to build a massive storage for that.

Every time someone says computers can't solve chess because there are too many games I will need to show this diagram. Not every game of chess needs to be examined to prove that there is one forced win. That the entire game-tree needs to be studied to solve chess is a common misconception, but is simply not true.😯

 Btw, @LeonSKennedy992, I agree with you on your profile that "chess is an art".

@ vickalan.......This is very interesting! Thanks for the feedback, sir!  That tree diagram is quite insightful.

For HARD-solving a game, though, that branch DOES matter. For SOFT-solving (i.e. proving beyond reasonable doubt win-draw-loss from from beginning or Medium from a given position), provided adequately evidenced correct computer logic (that initial analysis of 'Black loses' at first fork in the tree), that should suffice, especially if possible transposition are addressed and forcible unique lines assessed.

I agree.  Very good point, sir.  

I suppose the definition of "Hard-solving" is to produce the game-tree of every possible game. This of course will produce a lot of information that is of little or no interest. But indeed you are correct: Hard-solving chess is regarded as intractable.

Btw: Notable chess-lover and mathematician Claude Shannon wrote about that in his famous acadamic paper in 1949, "Programming a Computer for Playing Chess". Since first published, nobody has bothered even trying to produce a catalog of every chess game. There simply isn't enough paper on the planet to produce such a book, or as LeonSKennedy992 says "ATOMS in the known UNIVERSE".😲

What I first think of when I read casual discussions of 'solving' chess is the softest sense of providing ample evidence of theoretical conclusion provided accurate (non-imperfect) play from move1 (most probably a Draw, highly unlikely White to win, miniscule possibility of Black to win; open question remains).  Without immense technological advancement at the quantum level (new inventions and innovations therefrom), chess will NEVER be solved in the hardest sense that not even checkers has.

Of course there are positions that computers as of yet will not correctly play that lesser humans can, and those 99% others that they do play stronger and more accurately than humans are not proven as correct since they do not consider all subbranches omitted as unlikely to yield better effect (and usually is the case) per the program's non-perfect heuristic algorithms. But those problematic positions are very uncommon, especially in actual games, and mostly if not wholly avoidable with accurate play, and increasingly fewer scenarios fall under top engines' weakness with newer better iterations and hardware capabilities.

we're advanced enough at chess to if someone came up with a position then we'd be able to confidently say what the best move was after a few days of studing with engines and people but not the whole game of chess (as of now)

Very true. Just as our opening_book lines 'theory' has evolved beyond the scope of computer evaluations, so too has breadth of our effective database (collective knowledge) of middlegame positions (with endgame 7man tablebases hard-solved). With accurately correlated patterns from these middlegame positions' deep extensive analysis, they will in time be increasingly truncated precisely to be evaluated a more accurate (moreover, meaningful) analysis by software, especially with increasing advancements in data storage and digital-processing power.

There may indeed be casual or informal discussions of solving chess but to game-theorists and mathematicians, the phrase "solving (any game here)" is very clear:

It means it has been proven with certainty which one of the following is true:
1) The first person can force a win (in chess this is White).
2) The second player can force a win (in chess this is Black).
3) Both players can force a draw.

Chess is currently not solved, and will certainly be very difficult to do so. I think it does rank as one of the most discussed and talked about "unsolved" problems which spans both mathematics and game-theory.

Some other math problems or games which have also drawn plenty of attention include:

a) what is the next largest prime number?
b) among radio signals being listened to in space, does any of it contain sequences that indicate the source is extra-terrestrial (intelligent) life?
c) what is the fewest clues possible in a Sudoku puzzle (solved several years ago).
d) "the moving sofa problem" (What two-dimensional shape with the largest area can be moved around an L-shaped hallway?). Still unsolved.
e) how many shapes can tile a plane? ("solved" incorrectly at least once. Most recently a new shape was discovered in 2015, which generated significant chatter among the math community.

I believe that if chess is solved, it will generate more attention worldwide than any of the problems here, with the exception of discovering radio signals being generated by extra-terrestrials.👽😊

been on this site long time - this post comes up time and again my opinion is that yeah theoritically chess will never be solved - but in the practical real world - it is for all practical purposes solved - take the world best chess player and have him play a 1300 player like me one million games - well he wins one million and he lets me win one game just because I am crying and whimpering - digging deep into this question makes me laugh - I have been a nerd my entire life - intellectual nerds and genius nerds can be the tupiest people on earth ( I include myself here not as a genius nerd but just as a nerd ) - for the observation that once a person has written a ten page answer on a 5 five word question like this they show that world that dark side - that side being that once a know it all nerd convinces himself he is right nothing on earth can change him mind - that there is the stigma - the closed mind - a closed mind is the antithesis of the nerdy intellectual searching the universe for all the truth

I understand the rationale here however remember when computers were still in its infancy all the world CHECKER champions predicted no computer would ever beat the best human players. We know how that ended. LOL.  Next came decades of false predictions that chess would be too complicated. That didn't end too well either. And now recently the fall of the Chinese game GO by the program ALPHA GO. Seems too impossible beyond us to be completely solved but the possibility lies in the unknown future. As for me, I just continue my humble improvement toward beating human chess players. Studying great sites like chess.com, chesstempo.com, and chessbounty.com.