True or False Chess is a Draw with Best Play from Both Sides

ponz111 Maybe you should clarify what you mean by "1.e4 is not an error".

My point is that by definition, if e4 is not a mistake, the outcome of the game with perfect play is the same before or after this move. However you admitted yourself that we don't know the outcome of a perfect game for sure. Then how can we know for sure it has not changed after 1.e4 ?

Did you mean "I would bet my life that e4 is not an error" ? If not, an if you are absolutely sure that e4 is not an error, can you prove it ? (to prove it, you would just have to show that the outcome of the game isn't changed after the move, but I warn you, this is terribly hard.)

George I did not say draws have decreased over the last 100 years. That is a misquote. I said draws have increased.  And of course there is nothing there for you to respond to as it is a proven fact.

If you do not see that is evidence that points to a draw with best play I cannot help that. I see it as do most of the grandmasters in this world.

Because there are a very very few positions that a grandmaster cannot determine if the game should be a draw just says the grandmaster is not perfect in evaluation.  He may get more than 99% correct but he is not perfect. However and this you seem to ignore a grand master with a chess engine and a table base will get way above 99% of all possible positions correct as to evaluation.

It is rather easy for a strong player to find a game where neither side made an error which would change the course of the game.

To evaluate a game a chess player does not just use heuristics to determine if a game is played without error. He can also use a strong chess engine and a tablebase.

I am giving my opinion on why I believe chess is a draw. Nobody has to agree with me and quite a few do not.  

all I can do is give evidence and this is discounted [of course] by those who do not agree. Because I give my opinion and give evidence does not mean I hijack the thread.  I answer questions and give opinions but everyone is free to do this.

One thing I do that others do not is I made an hypothesis as to what will happen if I am correct and like it or not my hypthesis is coming true.

Some deny it is coming true as they will not look at the facts. They just say 'i don't know this is true" but the facts are there.

You want statistics??

I guess, you can't teach "old dogs" new perspectives, huh?

Indeed, if this thread is any indication...some assumptions are better left unsaid.

"Grandmasters are very weak chessplayers compared to the standard required to determine if chess is ultimately a draw." Who says?

And what are the standards?  You define the standards? I am guessing [correct me if I am wrong] that your standards would be something like a 32 piece tablebase?  Which we will never have. 

The problem posed by jaas had dozens of only moves required for the win and no apparent way to find them. BUT THEY were found! And there was in this case a way to find them and that was by the use of a table base.

You are posing that there might just be one line with "only moves" to tell us if chess is a win? [presume you mean a win.] For you to think that says [and I am not trying to insult you at all] you just do not understand chess as well as the very strong players.

I do not see you acknowledging that I have a hypothesis which so far has come true.  If chess is a draw with best play then as humans and chess engines get stronger there will be more and more draws in top level play. And this is exactly what is happening.

Conversley if chess is a win you would find over time [as players and computers get better] more and more wins. We are not seeing this.

The fact that players and chess engines are getting stronger and thus there are more draws is very good evidence.

ponz I see two problems with your last post.

First you say crafting a tablebase was the way to go to solve some positions, but you also say we shouldn't rely on a 32 man table base to solve the initial position. Don't you think there is a contradiction there ? If we needed a tablebase to solve apparently simple positions (less than 7 pieces on the board), i think it's not likely we can solve the very complex initial position on our own (human + engines).

Second, about your hyposthesis coming true : imagine that in 10 years, we find revolutionary ideas and white start getting lots and lots of wins. Would that be evidence that chess is a win for white ? imagine antother 10 years later, we get draws again before the ideas get refuted. What to conclude ?

I think the statement "if chess is a draw we will see more and more draws" is a great simplification. And even if you don't think this is the case, this statement does not work both ways. What I mean is even if the statement "if chess is a draw we will see more draws" is true (and i don't think it is), it does not imply that "if we see more draw then chess is a draw".

What do you think ?

Chess players and chess engines are getting stronger over time. [talking about the top players]. This means they are getting closer and closer to playing without errors. There are already many games without errors.

As chess players and chess engines get stronger--they get closer to the result you get with perfect play.

If, over time, the top chess players started winning more and more with White--this would be an indication that White can win with best play.

If over time, the top chess players started drawing more and more with

either color--this would be an indication that chess is a draw with best play.

Now if people do not "see" this, fine they do not see this. Some understand this is true and some do not.

Too bad we do not have any grandmasters posting but they would just say "this is silly, it is very obvious chess is a draw with perfect play." Then I would not be in such a minority with my opinion.

However why some people get insulted that I have this opinion is beyond me. I have given the reasons for my opinion.

I might be able to explain why people feel insulted. when you say something like :

"Too bad we do not have any grandmasters posting but they would just say "this is silly, it is very obvious chess is a draw with perfect play." Then I would not be in such a minority with my opinion."

You seem to be saying we are to bad at chess or to stupid for our opinions to be taken into account. I could very well be as insulting and say : "if only a great mathematician was here he would immediatly see that these evidence are pure nonsense and logically flawed". However, we do not do that and try to have a serious conversation, which involve explaining why we think what we think. Would you mind trying to do the same ?

Back to the question of trends showing anything about the nature of chess, I do not agree for the following reason :

Following the hypothesis "when we see more of a given result (draw, win for white or win for black), it is indication that this result is the ultimate result of the game" is not true.  Let me ask you one question that I think sums up a lot of what we say :

Untill now, nobody has been able to find a line that is a clear win for white (or black). What do you think is the reason for this ?

- Such a line does not exist.

- Such a line is very very hard to find, and/or we are looking the wrong way.

My answer is : I don't know !!! And I think nobody knows.

If you think you know the answer to this question, please share it with us and try to justify as much as you can, because I think this is really the point where we disagree.

To answer your question which of the two possibilities is true?

My guess is such a line does not exist.  Why? because the starting position is only a very slight plus for White.  maybe 1/4th of a pawn.  It has been observed to really hope to win players need an advantage of about 1 whole pawn.  But when you look at the games of the best players and best chess engines--this 1/4th of a pawn advantage does not generally increase it decreases.

There have already been found drawing lines against  players who play  the Ruy Lopez, a well respected opening. The drawing lines were found with humans using strong chess engines. [another indication]

The hope that there will be one forced line which will win for white is simply not going to happen.

I know I am in the minority on this forum.  Simply put, I put more stock in the play of grandmasters with chess engines than most here do.  Or I could say strong players with chess engines. I think chess is getting close to played out on a practical basis at the very highest levels and 50 years from now it will be like checkers where the top players can always draw.

[this is a prediction]  I am sorry if my remark about grandmasters or strong chess players offended some, I did not mean it that way, I just meant they have knowledge that others do not have. 

I will note many of you have no problem stating how bad strong players and grandmasters are. While I disagree, I did not get offended.

I think when chess engines reach the 4000 level and you have chess engines playing each other [at exactly the 4000 level] you will see a whole lot of draws.  Just watch over the next few years to see if I am right.,

First, I am not arguing against myself. "A chess engine at the 4000 level never has a draw against the current best engines."  We do not have chess engines at the 4000 level so your sentence does not make sense. 

Also, in the recent computer world championship, you did not have all the computers the same strength.  My prediction was when computers reach the 4000 level and playing against each other at the same same level there would be a lot of draws. Your example was of computers playing against each other but at different levels.

You ask how much better do engines have to get for my predicted draw deadlock to happen?  First I did not say "draw deadlock"  I said a whole lot more draws.  And I was talking about computers at the 4000 level so there is your answer.

I think your last argument is mainly evidence that players at the same level get a lot of draws, wich seems to be true for every strong player, but has no corelation with chess being a draw with perfect play.

I think you missed george's last argument a bit. From what you say, I interpret that you think GMs and engines are very close to playing perfect. George's argument is that in a couple of years, we will have computer that will give them beating after beating with both colors. So is it so obsvious that they are allmost perfect since they will be outplayed soon ?

Hans Berliner has argued that objectively, 1.d4 is a better move than 1.e4. He bases his conclusion on the ease of development of the pieces coupled with the strength of the proposed gambit by pushing the Bishop's pawn. 1.d4 d5 2.c4! is an excellent move which increases the mobility of white's pieces and gains pressure on the center while 1.e4 e5 2.f4!? weakens the king.

Having said that, all this talk of heuristics misses the basic point:

Specialists in the field are in unanimous agreement that chess is a draw with perfect play. (Discussing less than perfect play is irrelevant to the argument.)

After more than 150 years of professional chess, no winning line has been found. To the contrary, no line that even wins a clear pawn has been found. What has been found is that Black has more and more resources to maintain the drawing margin. The evidence is all pointing toward the conclusion that chess is a draw.

It is clear that since this evidence is not "interesting" to people such as GeorgeJetson, the only evidence they will ever accept is a clear set of of analysis that chess is drawn. 

Mathematics has numerous axioms and accepted theories that have not been proven. That does not mean such theories are wrong, it merely means they have yet to be proven. The theory that chess is a draw is based on prior evidence. It is not a theorem, but a representation of the current understanding of chess by specialists in the field.

The burden of proof in this argument is on those who claim that chess is not a draw. Simply showing a forcing line that leads to an increasing advantage for white would be a good start.

Smylov : I disagree. I do not claim chess is not a draw. I claim we don't know if chess is a draw and I also claim it is a terribly hard problem. The burden of proof is on the person who says chess is a draw. But I don't really think the discussion is about finding a proof that chess is or is not a draw, it's more about the motivations that one can have to believe chess is drawn and the arguments that can be opposed to these motivations.

non proven math statements are called conjectures. They are never accepted as long as they are not proven. Sometimes one will base his work on admitting a conjecture, but he fully knows that if this conjecture is disproven one day, all his work will become flawed and unusable. Axioms have a special status. They are not proven because they are the basic rules of maths. Asking to prove an axiom would be like asking to prove that bishops move diagonaly. You can't answer anything else than "that is how it works."

I don't know what specialists you are talking about. The game theorists are unanimous that we don't know the answer. Some will say they think chess is likely a draw, but I dare you to find one who will strongly afirm that.

george jetson  I think you are missing that I do not claim to have 100% math proof that chess is a draw. Nobody has such a proof and it is very unlikely that anybody ever will have 100% math proof that chess is a draw.

What we have is indications and evidence.  And these and my own chess experience make me 99% certain that chess is a draw. In fact I would bet my life on it.

It does not matter who has the burden of proof that chess is a draw or is not a draw because we will never have 100% proof so it is a moot question.

Yes, chess playing by computers is getting stronger and yes eventually there will be little to play for at the very top levels.  This is a prediction.

That chess at the top level is becoming more and more drawish is my hypothesis and it is standing up to fact.

There are many who insist that they do not know if chess is a draw or not because it has not been proveen 100%. Fine you do not know. I do not know 100% but I am not afraid to give an opinion based on several different factors.

As for closing this forum--I am all for it as we seem to be talking through each other  One side says chess cannot be proven a draw and nobody disagrees with that. The other side says that while chess cannot be proven to be a draw 100% math wise the evidence is overwhelming that , in fact, chess is a draw.  So you can have people undetermined which means there is no math proof and that includes me. But also people who are willing to say that the evidence points one way.

I would be glad to close this thread as it makes some people upset.

However chess.com will not just let me close the thread. 

You use this same syllogism (bolded above) against everyone who disagrees with you. It's really quite tiresome.

"Logic and Science" constitute only 1/2 of the human conversation.  You can't clap with only one hand.  Sorry.

zborg your quoting is way out of context !

You indeed seem to know a lot about being arrogant and briging nothing new to the discussion. 

i second that!!!

Come back. Open can of worms. Find new circles running, and additionally ad hominem attacks and "party grouping" (ie people will never admit someone on their side has made a lousy argument). Close can. Go away.

Please, if you still want to do that, move to off-topic. This has been in hot topics for a month now.

I do not see anywhere where anyone mentioned "voting" Please someone show me where "voting" was mentioned?  

There is one heck of a difference between individuals expressing an opinion and "voting"

Also regarding the burden of proof is on those who claim chess is a draw.  I do not see anybody on this forum who claims that it is math proven chess is a draw. I, for one, have always indicated you cannot prove 100% that chess is a draw.

I have seen no mention that people must "vote"