In case you didn't know, it's sister game, "Checkers," was concluded a draw according to Clifford Pickover in his book The Math Book (which my daughter gave me for Christmas!) Jonathan Schaeffer and colleagues came up with a neat method (IN 18 years) of using hundreds of computers to work backward with one set of data and forward with another set until they could "hotwire" (my term) the two together. This happened in 2007.
There are brilliant programmers who have found slick ways of determining very, very large (to our teeny minds) prime numbers. Computer power alone is only helpful, it is the short cuts that do the job.
While my thinking it is so doesn't make it so, it is likely that whatever White (in chess) offers, Black will be able to find a balancing, "no edge" rejoinder. Bear in mind White only has to find ONE line which is a forced win out of a bazillion permutations. It's possible that something like Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem (a logical conundrum) may do the trick. The hard part will be in establishing the "boundary," or, parameter conditions. It may take a century to come up with that, so in the meantime, I can still publish books and articles on chess... and I hope you continue to buy them.
For someone taking notes, I made this prediction on March 11, 2011... and I know it's unlikely anyone will be around to say, "You know Bob, it turns out it's a forced win for...Black!!!"
Contact me at: bob@thinkerspressinc.com
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