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Subject: Re: The game of chess can never ever be solved.

Author: Omid David

Date: 06:16:39 11/03/02

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On November 03, 2002 at 09:00:59, Uri Blass wrote:

>On November 03, 2002 at 08:41:28, Omid David wrote:
>
>>On November 03, 2002 at 08:27:42, Joachim Rang wrote:
>>
>>>On November 03, 2002 at 07:37:26, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>
>>>>I believe that chess can be practically solved.
>>>>
>>>>I believe that you do not need to prove the result in order to get a draw in
>>>>every game.
>>>>
>>>>I do not expect it to happen in the near future but I believe that in 2050 every
>>>>comp-comp game between top programs in chess is going to be finished in a draw.
>>>>
>>>>Uri
>>>
>>>well that are concrete bets. Maybe you're right, but I hope not.
>>
>>Percentage of draws between top grandmaters has always been on an increasing
>>course. Nowadays 2 out of 3 games are ended in a draw. It is natural then, to
>>predict that in 50 or 100 years something like 4 out of 5 games will end in a
>>draw, and it could very well happen that in a little over a century almost all
>>the games between top grandmasters end in a draw. But that will not mean that
>>the game is solved, since the draw is the result of strength and knowledge of
>>the two players, not because they *know* what to play to reach a draw.
>>
>>You can call a game "solved", if everyone can learn what to do in a short time,
>>and will then, play the optimal moves forever (like tic-tac-toe). For computers,
>>"solved" will mean that they have a database or heuristic to determine the
>>optimal move at every position. For example, Shaeffer and his research group at
>>the University of Alberta are close to "solving" the game of checkers, in form
>>of having a database of win/lose/draw for every possible position.
>>
>>And according to this definition, the game of chess can NEVER EVER be solved.
>
>If programs always play the best move thanks to search and evaluation then
>The result is the same as the result that they do it thanks to database.
>

Correct, but the problem is that a program can never play the best move without
such a database!

>I am also not sure that the game can never be solved by some database.
>There can be a rule for classes of positions and not for a single position so it
>is possible to have database that may give a move for every position and the
>size of the database may be smaller than the number of the possible positions.
>

But still the database will be extremely large. Let's say you come up with a
database of _only_ 10^30 needed positions. Where will you store it?!


>Uri



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