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In another thread in ChessTalk, on the Candidates, this appeared:
Ivanchuk's quote regarding his 2nd round wins over Carlsen and Kramnik:
"They didn't make mistakes, which sometimes take place even in the strongest players' games: I outplayed them at the board finding the strongest moves."
Does this really ever happen in chess, that the loser didn't make any mistakes? Is it even possible? One can delude oneself into thinking that the play was forced, but analysis always finds that the loser made a mistake somewhere, however tiny, and that there was an equalizing or even winning move that was missed. I have never seen an analysis that showed that the loser played perfect moves yet still lost. (P.B.)
+++++++++
I read the above over several times because it is a topic I thought about a lot in my student days when I wanted to show, in a science fiction short story, the public reaction to a computer which played a perfect game. Never wrote it though.
Let us suppose that white’s first move is e4. If both players now play the “best” moves, is the advantage of first move enough to ensure that white always wins? Or is it always a draw?
By best move, I don’t mean that other moves are necessarily mistakes or errors – they are just not optimal in a perfect game. These are not easily proved good or bad, whereas an obvious error will be pointed out loudly by everyone within a ten-metre radius!
Until chess is completely solved by a computer, we shall not know the answer. I think we all have a feeling that e4 or d4 (say) are the best first moves and that h3 is not. There may be some algorithm that drastically cuts the number of lines to be considered down and which leads to a probable answer.
The answer will not affect the practical player to any extent – he will play his repertoire as before. The question is more in the realm of philosophy. I would be very surprised if Emanuel Lasker has not considered it somewhere in his writings. There are books on chess philosophy by Benjamin Hale, Dr. Fritz Siebert and Josef Seifert, among others, which may set the problem out more clearly than I can. This lets me out of explaining what an optimal move is (see above).
On the mathematical side, this seems to be the last word:
I found an article by John MacQuarrie that references work by the "father of game theory" Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Zermelo. It draws the following conclusion:
In chess either white can force a win, or black can force a win, or both sides can force at least a draw.
The logic seems sound to me.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2...ithm-for-chess
+++++++++
Four years ago there was an extended discussion on chess.com about the perfect game:
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/gene...ct-game?page=1
Some comments:
- One must wonder, however, if having the first move would prove supreme assuming perfect play from both sides.
- My belief is that the first move advantage that white has is not a sufficient advantage to be able to guarantee a win.
- There is a best move in any given situation. Theoretically, if that best move were played every time for both sides, who would win?
- No one. It would be a draw.
- Viewers of this topic may be interested in the US player Hans Berliner's remarks in connection with the Fifth World Correspondence Championship which he won by a margin of 3 points (score 14/16) over his nearest rivals: "Correspondence chess can be nearly perfect chess, and I am by nature a perfectionist."
- It is strongly believed that perfect play for both sides would result in a draw, but it has never been conclusively proven and won't be until computers are far stronger than they are today.
- Playing a perfect game is easy. It's been done many times. Like those boring symmetrical games in the Exchange Slav where nothing special happens that end in a draw after 15 moves.
- I also am not one that believes there is a "best move" in all positions. There are many positions in which 2, or more, moves may be equal and which move is chosen often depends on the player choosing the move. In an equal position with several equal candidate moves to choose from a player like Alekhine would almost certainly choose a different move than a player like Capablanca. The choice often depends on a player’s preferred style of play.
++++++++++
I have not considered that white may have a forced loss from the first, so I rather like Crowl, who rebelled against conventional wisdom (from Edward Winter’s Chess Notes):
From page 132 of the 1 July 1946 issue of C.J.S. Purdy’s magazine Chess World:
‘Frank A. Crowl, the Australian Nimzowitsch, as we long ago dubbed him, is a player who cares absolutely nothing for orthodox theories. Even the almost universally accepted idea that White has an advantage by moving first is contradicted by him. Inspired by some articles in the old Wiener Schachzeitung (a great chess fortnightly [sic] which died when Hitler acquired Austria), he believes that the perfect game of chess would be won by Black. No-one can prove the contrary.’
++++++++
Has anyone played a perfect or nearly perfect game?
Two candidates are:
Karpov-Kavalek, Nice Olympiad 1974
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lubomi..._b_926418.html
and
The perfect game is Réti-Kostić, Teplitz, 1922 (Irving Chernev)
Ivanchuk's quote regarding his 2nd round wins over Carlsen and Kramnik:
"They didn't make mistakes, which sometimes take place even in the strongest players' games: I outplayed them at the board finding the strongest moves."
Does this really ever happen in chess, that the loser didn't make any mistakes? Is it even possible? One can delude oneself into thinking that the play was forced, but analysis always finds that the loser made a mistake somewhere, however tiny, and that there was an equalizing or even winning move that was missed. I have never seen an analysis that showed that the loser played perfect moves yet still lost. (P.B.)
+++++++++
I read the above over several times because it is a topic I thought about a lot in my student days when I wanted to show, in a science fiction short story, the public reaction to a computer which played a perfect game. Never wrote it though.
Let us suppose that white’s first move is e4. If both players now play the “best” moves, is the advantage of first move enough to ensure that white always wins? Or is it always a draw?
By best move, I don’t mean that other moves are necessarily mistakes or errors – they are just not optimal in a perfect game. These are not easily proved good or bad, whereas an obvious error will be pointed out loudly by everyone within a ten-metre radius!
Until chess is completely solved by a computer, we shall not know the answer. I think we all have a feeling that e4 or d4 (say) are the best first moves and that h3 is not. There may be some algorithm that drastically cuts the number of lines to be considered down and which leads to a probable answer.
The answer will not affect the practical player to any extent – he will play his repertoire as before. The question is more in the realm of philosophy. I would be very surprised if Emanuel Lasker has not considered it somewhere in his writings. There are books on chess philosophy by Benjamin Hale, Dr. Fritz Siebert and Josef Seifert, among others, which may set the problem out more clearly than I can. This lets me out of explaining what an optimal move is (see above).
On the mathematical side, this seems to be the last word:
I found an article by John MacQuarrie that references work by the "father of game theory" Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Zermelo. It draws the following conclusion:
In chess either white can force a win, or black can force a win, or both sides can force at least a draw.
The logic seems sound to me.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2...ithm-for-chess
+++++++++
Four years ago there was an extended discussion on chess.com about the perfect game:
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/gene...ct-game?page=1
Some comments:
- One must wonder, however, if having the first move would prove supreme assuming perfect play from both sides.
- My belief is that the first move advantage that white has is not a sufficient advantage to be able to guarantee a win.
- There is a best move in any given situation. Theoretically, if that best move were played every time for both sides, who would win?
- No one. It would be a draw.
- Viewers of this topic may be interested in the US player Hans Berliner's remarks in connection with the Fifth World Correspondence Championship which he won by a margin of 3 points (score 14/16) over his nearest rivals: "Correspondence chess can be nearly perfect chess, and I am by nature a perfectionist."
- It is strongly believed that perfect play for both sides would result in a draw, but it has never been conclusively proven and won't be until computers are far stronger than they are today.
- Playing a perfect game is easy. It's been done many times. Like those boring symmetrical games in the Exchange Slav where nothing special happens that end in a draw after 15 moves.
- I also am not one that believes there is a "best move" in all positions. There are many positions in which 2, or more, moves may be equal and which move is chosen often depends on the player choosing the move. In an equal position with several equal candidate moves to choose from a player like Alekhine would almost certainly choose a different move than a player like Capablanca. The choice often depends on a player’s preferred style of play.
++++++++++
I have not considered that white may have a forced loss from the first, so I rather like Crowl, who rebelled against conventional wisdom (from Edward Winter’s Chess Notes):
From page 132 of the 1 July 1946 issue of C.J.S. Purdy’s magazine Chess World:
‘Frank A. Crowl, the Australian Nimzowitsch, as we long ago dubbed him, is a player who cares absolutely nothing for orthodox theories. Even the almost universally accepted idea that White has an advantage by moving first is contradicted by him. Inspired by some articles in the old Wiener Schachzeitung (a great chess fortnightly [sic] which died when Hitler acquired Austria), he believes that the perfect game of chess would be won by Black. No-one can prove the contrary.’
++++++++
Has anyone played a perfect or nearly perfect game?
Two candidates are:
Karpov-Kavalek, Nice Olympiad 1974
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lubomi..._b_926418.html
and
The perfect game is Réti-Kostić, Teplitz, 1922 (Irving Chernev)
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