Who Will WIn...?

[Geoff Chandler]

This appeared on Facebook and I got tagged in.

My answer. The mind reader wins - the player who sees the future can see they are going to lose.

[Kevin Thurlow]

Shame about the position set-up.

[John Upham]

Shame about the position set-up.

This is Fischer Random start position #534.

[Joey Stewart]

It doesn't seem that difficult of a conundrum, the guy who can see the future will know that there is no future where he can beat someone reading his mind so will not bother to play at all.

[Geoff Chandler]

The mind reader will be able read the other players mind so he too will know the future.

This is stupid.

What you want is the player knowing the future v a computer (I'm assuming one cannot read a computers mind.)

[Richard Bates]

I don't see why ability to read minds is a guarantee of winning a game of chess. The content of the second players mind really may not be that useful. The player at the "disadvantage" may also change their mind over time. Or the outcome of the game may generally be determined by outcomes beyond their reasonable horizon.

If a player plays a computer with access to the computers assessments and analysis, is winning a slam dunk? I don't think so. Computer assessments change.

And apart from anything else, chess may be a forced draw or win for either side.

[Joey Stewart]

It would be a strong advantage, you would have access to every line your opponent is calculating so shouldn't fall into any traps they set as well as being able to see how aware they are of whatever plans you are trying to catch them with.

And if nothing else comes of the advantage you could glean their darkest secrets to use to blackmail then into deliberately losing....

[Wadih Khoury]

Why insist on a winner, when the likely outcome is a draw?
The player with future vision just needs to pick the most boring and drawish opening, and his future vision will allow him to escape traps. The player mind reading will only see ways leading to draws.

[Roger Lancaster]

Why insist on a winner, when the likely outcome is a draw?
The player with future vision just needs to pick the most boring and drawish opening, and his future vision will allow him to escape traps. The player mind reading will only see ways leading to draws.

In this situation, does the player have the option "to pick the most boring and drawish opening" or is he or she pre-destined to do something else? Doesn't this simply lead us back into the old question of whether, if one were transported back to 1900 but with knowledge of the schoolboy Adolf Hitler's future, one would be able to change that future by killing him?

[David Williams]

The player who can see the future doesn't just know who will win, he knows all the moves that will be played. So the player who can read minds also knows all the moves that will be played. Neither can vary. As this is a nonsense, the original premise is a nonsense.

[MJMcCready]

Some questions posed on the internet are rather alluring. My favourite is 'Could a Jedi lightsabre cut through superman?

[Geoff Chandler]

Some questions posed on the internet are rather alluring. My favourite is 'Could a Jedi lightsabre cut through superman?

No - for that you need a Kryptonite Jedi lightsabre. (check out E-Bay)

Theses 'what if...' things pop up all the time on FaceBook, usually I ignore them but this one had a chess theme.

It is an impossible conundrum. Looking into the future is a big ask but I suppose you could
rig up two computers so that one can see what the other is calculating (reading it's mind.)

[Joey Stewart]

I guess the "chess" version of the what if questions are usually theoretical battles between historical world champions e.g. if you time travelled Magnus carlsen back to the start of the 1900s would any of the world champions of that era be able to stop him (personally I think he would crush just about all of them bar Fischer and Kasparov who would put up a good fight and quite possibly even win a match).

Or the alternative, bring someone like capablanca into the future, give him a few years alone with a good engine to catch up on his theory and set him loose against modern GMs to see how he got on.

[MJMcCready]

Yes, that is thrown up quite often and also ridiculed by the playing elite, who like to point out the game has changed so much and developed to the enxtent where you just can't make comparisons. I don't think that's quite true but whatever.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I'm a fair way off being convinced by that tbh, and the argument maybe contains just a smidgen of special pleading. The very greatest players have innate gifts that make them thus, which alone strongly suggests they would have more than coped in any era - including the present one.