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Subject: Re: Solving Chess ... Refute this, and I might listen to ya...

Author: Louis Fagliano

Date: 17:04:22 01/20/05

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On January 20, 2005 at 13:56:35, William H Rogers wrote:

>Chan
>When these calculations were first dreamed up the mathaticians were considering
>all possible moves of the chess men. Now considering that the most possible
>first moves in a chess game is 20 with the most possible moves for black is also
>20 then the number of possible moves becomes extremely great, but, I mean but
>with capital letters over the last few centuries our Grand Masters of chess have
>discovered or decided that there are only 5 or 6 best choices for the first move
>and only 5 or 6 best possible replies by black. If these numbers by themsleves
>are considered then chess solving moves into a more possible reality.
>Next consider that there are opening books out there that go to depths as great
>as 20 or moves deep and there are end game studies that backward trace the end
>game to somewhere close to that number, then it become more likely that the two
>will meet someday, and in fact in a tournement held a few years ago one program
>was mated by another which had never left its opening book.
>In my opinion just as soon as more work is done in this fashing we will see more
>games recorded from begining to end with mate being the end result. We must also
>remember that with transposition tables the total number of opening moves then
>becomes even smaller that originally calculated and once again setting the goal
>of solving chess even closer. What happens when 10*43rd power shrinks down to
>10*15th power,

Actually 10^43rd power does not shrink at all.  You started out "shrinking" by
throwing out idiotic moves when considering all possible chess games which is
something like 10^120th power.  That number can be "shrunk" by throwing out
idiotic games.  But 10^43rd power is the number is the number of legal positions
in chess, not the number of different possible games since there are an
inumberable ways of reaching any particular legal position by an inumberable
number of different move orders.  The number of legal positions can never be
"shrunken" because every legal position must be considered in order to solve
chess regardless of whether or not the moves that preceeded it in order to reach
that position were idiotic or masterful.


does that sound like a more reasonable number that just might be
>solvable, and if the total number of really powerful moves that can not be
>refuted hold true then is it not possible that the real number of moves to solve
>chess becomes more of a reality? I believe that in the next 10 or 20 years
>because of the work being done on both opening and end game studies that the
>connections will be found and thus rendering chess by those who follow those
>connections unbeatable or in other words 'solved'.
>There may not be that many who follow my thinking but I think in time this will
>be proven to be right.\
>My best
>Bill



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