Mystery chess puzzle that has never been solved with full consistency yet:

White to play, white or black to win


And for those who need a hint

Prove it.

--Fromper

I can't "conclusively" prove it, but I would point out that if anybody ever proved that theory wrong, chess would instantly become pointless...

If anyone conclusively proved that theory right, it would instantly become pointless, too.

Of course, checkers has been mathematically "solved" by computers, but it's not a solution that can be memorized and played out by human players, so the game is no more pointless than it ever was.

So maybe chess wouldn't be, either. But certain openings would either spike or seriously decline in popularity.

--Fromper

Either way, with the ever increasing processing power available to computers, we may not be as far away from the conclusive answer as it might seem...although I am willing to bet large sums of money that the theory I originally posted will be proven correct.

It was said that a guy took 18 years to solve checkers (using computers!), and even then, it is not fully solved.

So how long will it take to solve chess?

to avoid that (narrowing the reportoire to the openings mathematically proven "best"), they could force people to play random openings, as they actually do in checkers.the computer I had like 15 years ago was 16MhZ, now it's 2800 MHzif it was proven that - no mistakes done by either side - White should always win the game, the rules could be adjusted to allow re-mating, for example (if White mates but Black also mates the next move, it's a draw)

@vibovit:
Yes, I understand that, but chess has near endless combinations, and solving will take lots of work.