[nuclx]

My words were harsh and I probably deserve the downvotes. It just appears like it is getting ever more evident, that chess results in a draw assuming perfect play. That doesn't diminish the accomplishments of world class chess players in any way, but it feels like there is a reachable skill cap allowing black to force a draw. I'm not even sure if it's possible to design a "fair" game, which always has a winner, assuming no randomization. Go is most likely closer to that goal than chess, as it always has a winner and allows to compensate for the first-mover advantage using a score bias. Then of course finding an optimal value for the bias is a hard problem.

[maceurt]

To be able to compute all the moves in chess and to play perfectly is literally impossible. There are more possible games in chess than atoms, protons, etc. Even the amount of possible games from ELO 2900 and up are still going to a number humans can not even comprehend, and that a computer would not be able to solve. Theoretically there is perfect play in chess, but theoretically there is also perfect play in basketball or baseball.

[ovi256]

Advanced or centaur chess (where the team consists of a man plus a computer chess engine) tournaments routinely consist of 90% draws, and the best players are estimated at 3600 ELO, very close to the theoretical perfect play [1].

You may find Gwern's comments on Advanced chess interesting: https://www.gwern.net/Notes#advanced-chess-obituary

[1] http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/papers/pdf/RMH11b.pdf

[jki275]

"perfect play" referring to chess is a silly concept.

[nuclx]

No it's not, defining it as: If it's possible for a player to force a win or draw, do it. Just because it's computationally unfeasible to determine, doesn't mean it isn't theoretically possible to decide.

[jki275]

That's the point, while chess is deterministic, it's not computationally feasible to play the game perfectly.

[newen]

Perfect play as is currently used in the chess world means you don't make moves that result in you losing your advantage or giving the other player an advantage, given current computational resources to evaluate a position. If both sides play perfectly then the game results in a draw.

I think most of the games that are possible (ie games in game space) in chess are draws but this is just my sense of it.