Perhaps, but I don’t let that concern me. I enjoy the game for the pleasure and challenge it provides to a human mind. I mean, just because a forklift will always be able to outlift me doesn’t mean I don’t want to stay in shape. 
Tic Tac Toe has been ‘solved’ for decades if not centuries, kids still play it. 3D Tic Tac Toe is also a game with a known solution, but how many people can take advantage of that knowledge? (When I was in college we programmed a computer to help us play 4D and 5D Tic Tac Toe, which wasn’t that hard to track using computers, but most spatially-oriented people balk at the concept of a 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 ‘cube’, much less 6 x 6 x 6 x 6 x 6.)
If anything, ‘solving’ chess might increase interest in it slightly, since it means that in any given position there really is a ‘best’ move.
Mathematically, every position is either a forced win (for every variation there is a forcing sequence leading to mate), a forced loss (every move leads to a forced win for the opponent), or neither (correct play by both sides will lead to a draw).
Therefore, there will generally be more than one “best” move. Technically, there are no degrees of “bestness”, even though, with human play (and even computer play), some lines are trickier than others, i.e. more likely than others to sucker the opponent into a trap.
Bill Smythe
well,one things for sure i will never solve the puzzle… :mrgreen:
- If it’s solved, we just go to FischerRandom chess, or some offshoot.
- Horses and cars go faster than humans, but we still have running races!
Solved by a computer leaves most of us still in the dark. 
I heard some people talking on ICC saying that there are more chess positions than there are particles in the universe… I don’t know much about that statement, but if it’s true it could be semi difficult to “prove” chess 
The team that recently solved checkers discounts the possibility of chess being solved any time soon:
You can read the whole article here. http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/07/19/checkers_tec.html?category=technology&guid=20070719140030
Not so sure that the order of magnitude is all that great between checkers and chess.
Any move that loses material to create a won position renders all following move possibilities irrelevant.
Any move in a won positon that leads to a draw or lost renders all following move possibilites irrelevant.
I sure that you could prune the tree of possible chess moves pretty ruthlessly. In checkers you can prune the tree of possible pretty ruthlessly also. Obviously chess is still more complex but chess probably has many more irrelevant move possibilities than checkers.
Solving chess may never happen, or may happen in my lifetime.
But going to Fishcer Random chess mearly means computers will have to go through 959 more variations of chess.
If someone can solve chess for the first postition, it would only be a matter of time before all variation of Fischer Random will be solved.
I’d think if it came down to solving chess -vs- humans enjoyment: Even now tournaments have to take caution against people using computers to cheat at chess, esp if there are large prizes involved.
I suppose humans could gravitate toward Gothic Chess. That adds more squares and more pieces to the equation. Although if a computer can solve Chess, it can solve Gothic Chess to, but it would add a complex element to the game.
Personally, I think of “solving chess” more on par with using a machine to hit a golf ball. For many years, golf club manufacturers have had a machine to hit golf balls in order to test equipment. Its much easier to get statistical data if you have a a machine to hit a golf ball exactly the same way for thousands of hits than using humans which have minor variations when hitting the ball every time.
Certainly the “Man vs Machine” matches are more or less a thing of the past, since the best programs easily beat all humans, even the World Chess Champion, who’d have to fight for a draw even.
There are roughly 10^80 particles in the universe. So if the estimate posted above of 10^45 chess positions is accurate, it falls just a bit short…
Quantum computers can’t even do what Pentiums do now, as I understand it. So it’s more than a stretch to say we have solved chess because of them.
In a “typical” chess position, there might be three to five candidate moves that a strong player would consider. (Other opinions welcome, which probably say more about the person expressing the opinion than the “right” answer to the question.) How many candidates does a checkers position typically have?
I once asked a checkers grandmaster how far he has to see ahead. He told me that a typical GM has to look about 17 moves or 34 ply (in computer terms) ahead in any position. He wasn’t afraid that computers would solve the game of checkers. There were too many positional pattern problems for them to solve.
Over the years and the many chess matches that the computers played against GMs since the mid 1980’s, I’ve noticed that they still haven’t solved several evaluative problems in their software. Most programs and programmers seem to have followed a path of going after speedier hardware rather than the original goal of developing an algorithm that solves problems in the superior way that top human players do. The interesting way in which David Bronstein played shows that “wetware” is still superior to the software. It would have been more interesting to see Berliner’s and Hsu’s programs play against some other players with lesser standing first rather than against the world champions. Kasparov’s attempt at “anti-chess” play just fell right into the hands of the Deep Blue team. He respected the machine too much, causing a psychological block. Of course, having the machine playing against a lesser master might have generated an 1800 performance rating. Too risky for IBM and the programmers’ reputations.
Tom I think you’re way off. 10 years ago humans could beat a top computer. Now it’s no longer possible. We’re beat.
Bronstein (related to “Trotsky”?) was a very interesting player, and probably could have beaten most or all computers in his playing days. But then wasn’t now.
Shirov and others are now saying computers are teaching the humans. These are the very best humans in the world. And if it was true a year or two ago, it’s even more true now.
I see the influence of computers on GM play in the choices of openings. Almost anything is usable and debatable now. In the old days the Petroff was for getting a draw. Now those almost-symmetrical positions are considered sharp. Probably computers are very good at them.
A while ago, I set up a symmetrical and nearly intractable K + P endgame and let the computer crank away on it. I figured it would be “White to move and win”. At 45 ply I was shocked to find my chess engine could only conclude that Black was slightly better.
Wondering what was going on, I set up simpler symmetrical derivatives of the endgame and discovered that sometimes it was zugwang. This gave me an idea.
Suppose that if and when chess is solved computationally we discover that White is really in zugzwang?
With what we think we know of opening theory, play, and counterplay, it seems outrageous, but computers have surprised us many times already. Think of this next time you are paired with the black pieces!
I think you just gave me vertigo! 
Good movie, James Steward. Directed By Alfred Hitchcock. :open_mouth:
From what you say here about your set-up, not much, but I guess you were not using the Nalimov endgame tablebases. And perhaps the position you were analyzing exceeded 6 men. (I have no idea when the 7 men will be completed since it is gonna be incredibly HUGE!)
My belief is that when chess is solved (hopefully not in my lifetime or even my grandkid’s) there will be quite a large number of openings that will all resolve into a draw. And all other openings will turn into a loss for either black or white. Meaning that if White plays the Sokolsky it will be an automatic loss for White. Or if Black plays the Dutch Defense it will be an automatic loss for Black. (No, I don’t know that either of these openings will truly resolve this way. Nor do I mean to say they could be either.)
And yes, I am like 99.99% sure that some day chess will be solved, when computers are powerful enough to do so and there’s an engine strong enough.
I’m also curious as to what computer system you were using, the engine, and all that jazz.
That’s a horrendous thought, but it’s a distinct possibility! 
Here’s a problem I composed when I was 12:
White to move, black to win; or black to move, white to win. (It’s just a little harder than it looks, although I’ve known one master who was unable to solve it.)
Bill Smythe