I know next to nothing about what's actually been discovered about chess. But as a mathematician, here's my reasoning:
First we must remember that White gets to go first and maybe this gives him an advantage; maybe it gives Black an advantage.
Now suppose that there is no perfect strategy for Black that lets him always win/stalemate. This implies that no matter what Black does, there is a strategy White can follow to win. Wait a minute - this means there is a perfect strategy for White!
This tells us that at least one of the two players does have a perfect strategy which lets that player always win or draw.
There are only three possibilities, then:
- White can always win if he plays perfectly
- Black can always win if he plays perfectly
- One player can win or draw if he plays perfectly (and if both players play perfectly then they always stalemate)
But which of these is actually correct, we may never know.
The answer to the question is yes: there must be a perfect algorithm for chess, at least for one of the two players.
