Chess is not Checkers - Thankfully!
I've used that phrase with chess students before, to emphasize that in chess, unlike checkers ("draughts" for at least some non-Americans), captures are not mandatory. It behooves one to be on guard for possible zwischenzugs, both for oneself and for the opponent. That's a useful lesson, but it's not the subject of this post.
Rather, it's this: word came down the pike yesterday that checkers is officially solved (here and here; HTs to Rob Bernard and Michael Bagalman, respectively). (That game is objectively a draw, in the unlikely event anyone suspected otherwise.) That paltry feat only took 18 years of working through 500 billion billion positions (ho hum); chess, on the other hand, has around a billion billion billion billion billion possible positions (so says the first article - I'll take its word for it, as trying to count them myself might keep me up past my bedtime).
Thus we're safe for now, as Tim Krabbé is always fond of pointing out. In his most recent Chess Diary entry (#344, "The Helplessness of the Pair of Queens"), he presents the game Kosten-Zelcic, in which White reaches a position with two queens and a pawn against a mere rook, bishop, knight and three pawns - but can't win. Despite the apparent obviousness of the blockade, none of the current programs, including Rybka, the current king, is even remotely able to recognize this. (Ironically, if the game score given both on Krabbé's site and on chessgames.com is right, White probably missed a win with 76.Qc7. Whether White can force that sort of winning position without help is another story.)
Rather, it's this: word came down the pike yesterday that checkers is officially solved (here and here; HTs to Rob Bernard and Michael Bagalman, respectively). (That game is objectively a draw, in the unlikely event anyone suspected otherwise.) That paltry feat only took 18 years of working through 500 billion billion positions (ho hum); chess, on the other hand, has around a billion billion billion billion billion possible positions (so says the first article - I'll take its word for it, as trying to count them myself might keep me up past my bedtime).
Thus we're safe for now, as Tim Krabbé is always fond of pointing out. In his most recent Chess Diary entry (#344, "The Helplessness of the Pair of Queens"), he presents the game Kosten-Zelcic, in which White reaches a position with two queens and a pawn against a mere rook, bishop, knight and three pawns - but can't win. Despite the apparent obviousness of the blockade, none of the current programs, including Rybka, the current king, is even remotely able to recognize this. (Ironically, if the game score given both on Krabbé's site and on chessgames.com is right, White probably missed a win with 76.Qc7. Whether White can force that sort of winning position without help is another story.)