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Subject: Re: Can chess be partially solved?

Author: José Carlos

Date: 10:08:00 01/19/05

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On January 19, 2005 at 11:49:13, Ricardo Gibert wrote:

>This idea is half baked, but bear with me.
>
>What if we were to define the partial solving of chess as showing that White has
>at least a draw. In other words, instead of trying to show it to be 1 of 3
>possibilities (i.e. win, draw, loss), try to reduce the possibilties to just 2
>of 3 possibilities (e.g. win, draw).
>
>Now how could we modify a perhaps material only search of the beginning position
>to show this?
>
>What if were to score repetitions, stalemate & draw by insufficiency of material
>the same way as a checkmate given by White. Then it is just barely possible that
>a 25 ply or so search of the beginning position would return a "mate" score
>indicating White has at least a draw in chess. Failing that, perhaps one of the
>960 FRC start positions can be shown to be at least a draw for White.
>
>If the above modification is flawed,


  It is, I'm afraid. It would miss a mate in 26 plies when black sacrifices the
queen in ply 25.

  José C.


>perhaps someone can think of different
>modification that would do the trick. The point is that my lowering our sights,
>we just might possibly come up with a partial solution to chess or FRC today. A
>long shot for sure, but maybe worth a try.


  The idea makes sense, and the graph could then be much/somewhat smaller with
the correct pruning, but I still can't see how to get there with current
computing power.

  José C.


>BTW, a draw by insufficiency of material can be loosened somewhat by requiring
>only that Black have insufficient material to mate though I would be surprised
>if this change would prove useful. That's an awful lot of captures to squeeze in
>within the search horizon of todays programs. It will happen during a search but
>it would probably not really be consequent.



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