"David Richerby" wrote in message
...
Ray Johnstone wrote:
wrote:
Is the initial position in chess a mutual Zugswang?

We will probably never know. See:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~ray/Chessgames.htm

Just because chess is likely impossible to brute-force doesn't mean we
can never know the outcome of theoretical best play. For example, it
is known that the game of `chomp' is a theoretical win for the first
player but nobody knows how to force the win except in very simple
cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomp

Yeah, this is always an interesting debate, but its not even known if
/theoretically/ if it is white or black who wins, or the game is a draw. To
make such a claim the basis of it needs to be discussed, and strangely, must
deal with this factor:-

Usually people think white has all the chances, since white is the first
player with initiative and wins chess games at about twice the rate as
black, but immediately at the first move white is vulnerable to having
transmuted that initiative [potential] into action. Black then has a
momentary initiative, but different than at the previous ply, since white
has committed himself, and turned that mutable potential into relatively
fixed position.

I don't know if any mathematician has ever seriously proposed which of these
two states, potential :: action, is superior from any theoretical model.

Adorjan's books analyse white/black wins as much from a psychological basis,
as anything else - that we have an expectation [or even obligation] to do
better with white and different expectation with black [getting a draw is
good!]. But there is no objective basis in chess for either attitude!

--------
Chess is not even conveniently describable /as a process/ as a Finite or
Infinite Game. James Carse makes a few ad hoc or generalising descriptions
of finite/infinite, he says;-

a) a finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for
the purpose of continuing the play. and
b) the rules of a finite game may not change; the rules of an infinite game
must change.

Although chess is ostensibly finite, if you take the way it is played /the
modus/ as the rules applicable to that part of the game, then the rules do
change as the game progresses [there are no pawn promotions in the opening,
eg] but there is no /fixed/ prescription for when pawn promotions become a
consideration to actual play - and 'continuing the play' is what happens in
balanced or even dynamically unbalanced positions - and there are no fixed
number of moves to any game of chess, except as metaphysically decided by
others.

---
Adorjan even says that we are conditioned to always prosecute our chess from
white's point of view - and that all chess diagrams are presented as if you
were sitting behind the white pieces, eg. and this reinforces the conscious
perception of 'white to move and win.'

Players overconcentrate their study with what to do with the white pieces,
and this imbalanced study coupled with received expectations of what to do
with white or black, creates a self-fulfilling result.

But after 1.e4, which side actually choses the opening? If the Sicilian is
played, which side choses the sub-variation, to play the Taimanov or Pelikan
vars?

Can any mathematician or logician suggest even an objective basis for
determining the result of chess as Finite/Infinite [?] game.

Can the statement, "black always wins" be refuted, or can it be shown to be
unprovable?

Phil Innes


Dave.

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