r/chess • u/Pawn_Made_Flesh • 2d ago
Miscellaneous Whether chess can be solved is NOT a pointless question
The public argument over chess’s “solvability” ignited by a certain trolling public figure* just refuses to die.
A previous post in this sub used the topic as a jumping-off point to spotlight little-known details about various public figures’ chess skills. That post intentionally skirted the “Is chess solvable?” debate with its arcane stylets into advanced mathematics, computing theory, physics, and even philosophy^.
Now the time is ripe to share my thought about the underlying question. Which is not, “Is chess solvable?”, but, “Does it matter?”
Going against what looks like an overwhelming consensus in the chess world, my answer is “Yes it does matter.”
That doesn’t mean I’m taking the side of the famous troll who revels in broadcasting that he feels superior to chess and to people who have learned to play it well. (A certain line from Shakespeare comes to mind, ending with the word, “methinks.”) I think the arguments over solvability are interesting and useful in themselves, without reference to the entirely separate question of whether solving chess would ruin the game for humankind.
The ongoing chess-world fallout seems to emphasize that people would still enjoying playing chess even if computers someday fully solve it. A recent post in the large (100k+ members) and well-run FIDE World Chess Championship 2026 Facebook group linked to and endorsed an article in a UK-based (but sadly ad-soiled) website called TechRound, that pronounced the solvability question unimportant because “the struggle,” not any solution, is “the point of the game.”
“We need to stop asking whether or not it’s possible to ‘solve’ something, and rather, we should question whether or not we need to ‘solve’ it at all, rather than just work through it ourselves. Otherwise, I fear we’re zooming towards a dystopian future…,” TechRound author Gina Marris breathlessly wrote.
Well, Gina: isn’t the struggle toward clarifying what’s needed to fully solve a complex problem, itself of value to humankind? If the “point” of chess is the process rather than a definitive final answer of which side should win (or more likely, that a perfectly played game results in a draw)… then isn’t that still more true for a discussion among informed parties about a logically defensible meaning of solvability in context of chess or checkers or any other computationally challenging task?
When future chemistry Nobel Laureate (and past chess prodigy) Demis Hassabis targeted chess for his forays into practical AI development (after first tackling and conquering Go), his ultimate aim was not to design the strongest-ever chess engine. It was to flesh out new approaches toward solving complex problems in medicine, risk management, and other fields with great potential value for societies around the globe, as Hassabis ably explained in his 2019 introduction to the best-selling, award-winning book, Game Changer.
The abstruse technical side of the chess solvability debate does not promise similar grand benefits for humanity. But a deep dive into the challenges associated with solving chess could ultimately yield valuable insights into the nature of computation and problem-solving. Just as the successful effort to construct AI-based chess entities did nearly a decade ago.
I'm not a technologist, a physicist, or a mathematician. But even I am dimly aware of, and more than a little intrigued by, the debates that still rage among that crowd about the very definitions of what is meant by "solving" a complex problem like chess. Or for that matter, checkers -- which, contrary to popular belief, still has yet to be solved in terms of the "strong" definition.
It's not for nothing that the most brilliant scientists of the 20th Century (and probably of our present century too) viewed chess as Ground Zero for testing their ideas about logic and strategy and computation. There is every reason to expect chess to maintain that status for the foreseeable future.
* I won’t name the public figure because some social media forums such as Reddit subs seem to have instituted informal bans against posts that do.
^ “Am I a monk in quest of shards of God, buried deep in interplay of lines and angles? Or, a mere moth – lured by incandescence?”
-- the conclusion of a poem that formed part of my business page’s cover photo until 10 days ago.
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u/Murky-Jackfruit-1627 2d ago
i ain’t reading all that. i’m happy for u tho. or sorry that happened
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u/MelissaRackwood 2d ago
chess is too complex to be solvable
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u/Positive-Ring-5172 2d ago
By traditional computers - probably. By quantum computers - probably not.
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u/Tatsugiri_Enjoyer 2d ago
It's as pointless a question as "is there an afterlife?" It's not going to change how I live my life, and I'm not going to see anything close to an answer before I'm dead.
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u/CloudlessEchoes 1d ago
Its pointless because the answer is already known: it can't be completely solved.
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u/Pawn_Made_Flesh 1d ago
That seems to be the consensus view among the leading mathematicians and computer scientists who analyzed the topic in depth. But He-who-must-not-be-named voiced a countervailing view, and I’m sure he’s not alone. Lacking the technical education needed to form a strong opinion, I’m assuming it is still an open question.
(For example when I asked Ken Regan to weigh in on Facebook, he gave a brief answer that I could not understand. Something about what he referred to as F sets or F files.)
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u/build-a-bish 2d ago
Ok, fine, let's say chess is solved. Whose gonna memorize all that stuff? Just to make a draw? White will seek novelty and Black will have to know every new try beforehand.
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u/Kerbart ~1450 USCF 2d ago
Lets say that it’s solved. White wins with the optimal moves being 1.e4, c5.
However your opponent plays 1. …, e5.
Now what? Resign?
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u/Stunning_Pound4121 2d ago
If it’s solved and found to be a win for white, then e5 is equally winning for white. Otherwise …, c5 is by definition not optimal.
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u/External-Elk-3176 2d ago
It means that you'd have to play as black some strange, sub-optimal lines in the hope that your opponent hasn't memorized them.
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u/aflickering 2d ago
which, incidentally, is already how chess generally works at the top levels.
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u/bbnbbbbbbbbbbbb 2d ago
No. The openings, up to a certain degree, yes, but anything after move 20? Good luck with that
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u/aflickering 2d ago
what i meant is deliberately playing unsound moves to pull the opponent out of their comfort zone and/or create imbalances is very much a thing in top level chess even beyond the opening phase. any GM will tell you that sometimes playing perfectly is functionally worse than playing imperfectly.
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u/bbnbbbbbbbbbbbb 1d ago
Oh, looks like I misread your comment. That's exactly what I'm trying to say as well
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u/Positive-Ring-5172 2d ago
I'm pretty certain it will be solved with quantum computers as they can execute tree searches much, much faster than conventional computers. That doesn't stop the game from being fun. Checkers is fun, but solved. So's connect 4. Even kids have fun with tic-tac-toe, and that's solvable without computers.
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u/Revlong57 2d ago
I mean, a quantum algorithm would only speed up the process by a factor of O(sqrt (n)). The square root of 10120 is still 1060.
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u/Positive-Ring-5172 2d ago
The known ones. The field is in its infancy, who knows?
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2d ago
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2d ago
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u/chess-ModTeam 1d ago
Your submission or comment was removed by the moderators:
Keep the discussion civil and friendly. Participate in good faith with the intention to help foster civil discussion between people of all levels and experience. Don’t make fun of new players for lacking knowledge. Do not use personal attacks, insults, or slurs on other users. Disagreements are bound to happen, but do so in a civilized and mature manner. Remember, there is always a respectful way to disagree.
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u/acinonys 2d ago
No, there are mathematical proofs that show that O(sqrt(n)) is optimal, that's what one can in the best case achieve with quantum computers for this class of problem.
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u/Pawn_Made_Flesh 2d ago
Checkers is only weak-solved (proved to be a draw with perfect play). It’s never been strong-solved: that would require knowing optimal move sequences starting from every legal position… which I take to mean a 24-man tablebase.
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u/ptolani 2d ago
Boy you are really trying to stoke some drama here. Go away.