[RivieraKid]

AFAIK chess is has been "solved" for a few years in the sense that Stockfish running on modern laptop with 1 minute per move is unbeatable from the starting position.

[helloplanets]

This is not true. Stockfish is not unbeatable by another engine, or another copy of Stockfish.

Chess engines have been impossible for humans to beat for well over a decade.

But a position in chess being solved is a specific thing, which is still very far from having happened for the starting position. Chess has been solved up to 7 pieces. Solving basically amounts to some absolutely massive tables that have every variation accounted for, so that you know whether a given position will end in a draw, black win or white win. (https://syzygy-tables.info)

[LeifCarrotson]

The parent is using a different definition, so they put "solved" in quotes. What word would you suggest to describe the situation where the starting position with 32 pieces always ends in either a draw or win for white, regardless of the compute and creativity available to black?

I haven't verified OP's claim attributed to 'someone on the Stockfish discord', but if true, that's fascinating. There would be nothing left for the engine developers to do but improve efficiency and perhaps increase the win-to-draw ratio.

[RivieraKid]

Do you have a source? I remember asking on the Stockfish Discord and being told that Stockfish on a modern laptop with 1 min per move will never lose against Stockfish with 1000 min per move from the starting position.

But I'm not sure whether that guy was guessing or confident about that claim.

[sscg13]

Hypothetically, what reward would be worth the cost for you to attempt to beat Stockfish 18, 100 million nodes/move, from the starting position?

[bee_rider]

“Solved” is a term of art. Defining it in some other way is not really wrong (since it is a definition) but it seems… unnecessary.

[sscg13]

You can run Stockfish single threaded in a deterministic manner by specifying nodes searched instead of time, so in principle it is possible to set some kind of bounty for beating Stockfish X at Y nodes per move from the start position, but I haven't seen anyone willing to actually do so.

[altruios]

Even by a stockfish running on a modern laptop with 2 minutes per move (provided they are going second)?!

[RivieraKid]

Yes, that's what "unbeatable from the starting position" means.