Isn’t chess a “finite” game where no luck is involved? Are computers able to calculate perfect strategies for both players?
And if yes, then which side is at the advantage?
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I’ve played chess for many years and in tournaments, and I’m also a software engineer. I can answer this question.
Straight to the point, Chess is not solved but white has the advantage because they move first. It is believed that it is likely a drawn game under perfect play because many high level games are draws, but it is not known for sure.
How close are we to solving the game of chess? We have something called “Endgame Tablebases” (EGTB) they are tables of positions that are winning or drawn with limited pieces on the board. If the game simplifies to one of these positions the computer will know if it is a win or not perfectly (it is solved). For example, you have King+Rook vs King+Knight will be a 4 piece EGTB and the computer will know from this lookup table if it is a winning position or not.
We have all 3, 4, 5, 6 and some 7 piece endgame table bases. Each time you add another piece the number of possible positions increases exponentially, and the game starts with 32 pieces. While we would ‘only’ need to calculate moves from the starting position, 32 pieces is much much greater than 7 and the complexity increases exponentially, therefore we are nowhere near solving chess.
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