Quantum chess program?

I wonder... how would a quantum chess program work? Would it be unbeatable as Black, or
would it always win as White? How would the knowledge of such a program affect our
attitude towards chess?

It would always win, but you could never observe it winning. :>

or, if you could, you wouldn't be certain anymore which game you
played.

Would it have to have a cat inside the box to work right? I never
figured out what Schroedinger was getting at.

--Rein

I think he just hated cats. But then again, "Schroedinger's Bunny"
doesn't have the same philosophical ring.

Or Schroedinger's Duck? Although I suppose he was somewhat of a
quack himself...

--Rein

Let me clarify: a quantum computer can carry out an infinite number of similar processes in
parallel. So, for example, a quantum computer could look for something a database in the
time it takes to examine one entry. No one has made a practical quantum computer yet, as
far as I know, but it is still plausible that such computers will start to emerge in the near
future.

Ever read Michael Crichton's "Timeline". Good book AND it deals with
that quantum computer stuff!

I'd pay good money to see a showdown between two of them

I don't know... it would be great, but once you'd seen it, you'd find the play of GMs clumsy,
error-prone and full of faulty assumptions.

I wonder.
As you said, what if, given "complete" analysis, Black simply always resigns, since perhaps it is only
our poor minds that think the game is even - maybe whites "tiny" advantage of having the first
move means it always wins. Or maybe the opposite, no matter what, White having to take the first
move dooms it to failure.

If the computers actually played, ie perhaps the games would be of such infinite subtletly, the
rationale of the moves would be unfathomable to us.
As a real example of this, look at end game table bases.These are exhaustive, brute force
calculated databases of every possible move combination in the end games. Intitially these tables
were small - King and piece/pawn vs King and piece/pawn. But they are calculable, and currently all
the 5 pieces tables can be downloaded or computed on your home computer, with efforts to
calculate the 6 piece table bases ongoing. ("piece" here meaning anything and everything, ie there
are a total of six pieces on the board, the two kings and 4 other pieces or pawns of various color).

There is a 6 piece end game - Knight and Rook vs two Knights, which requires 262 moves for white
to win, when both sides playing absolutely perfectly. To borrow from the descirption of the
endgame, "Of the first 14 moves in the solution to the above position eleven white moves are
absolutely forced. This means that if White does not find the only accurate move the game is
immediately drawn. There is a phase from move 125 to move 134 in which White has to make ten
accurate moves. Any deviation from the forced line loses half a point."
And the fen for that is:
6N1/5KR1/2n5/8/8/8/2n5/1k6 w - - 0 1

I doubt any human player could play that ending. Perhaps this mere and trivial game we call chess
is truly well beyond human understanding. Two humans, in this end game, would presumably
commit blunder after blunder - by computer standards. But could any of us ever recognize the
blunders without the aid of a computer?