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Subject: Re: "chess" cannot be solved

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 05:09:14 01/16/05

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On January 16, 2005 at 07:34:01, Ricardo Gibert wrote:

>On January 16, 2005 at 05:29:36, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On January 16, 2005 at 03:16:27, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>>
>>>To solve a game is to prove the result with best play for both sides.  It's a
>>>term with precise meaning.
>>
>>What if there is no formal proof of the result with perfect play but every game
>>between top programs ends in a draw?
>
>It probably means that if a win exists, they cannot search deeply enough to find
>it. What else could it mean? I don't like the idea of trying to understand a
>problem with fanciful probabilies like this. It can be misleading.

By the same logic you can say that maybe white does not win the following
position and black has a defence or even a win that programs cannot search deep
enough to see.

[D]1nb1kbn1/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1


>
>I used to think that calling chess a likely draw was a reasonable thing to say,
>but I've learned the hard way that the really right answer is to simply say we
>do not know.

What about the more obvious assumption that white does not lose.

I think that there are things that we can say that we know inspite of the fact
that we are unable to prove them.

Uri



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