Literally, you can go back in time at any point and redo any move if you find out it’s a losing move.
I understand that this is kind of what chess computers can do (play a million different games at same time and choose which ones seem most viable fo victory) but I’m talking true foreknowledge. For example, could you actually beat a top less chess computer if you knew exactly what moves it would make every single time?
Also note by perfect I mean winning vast majority of time, no draws.
I believe the point of chess is that there are so many possibilities after every single move that you would die of old age while going back and forth in time before knowing which move is the winning or the losing one. And you would get incredibly bored: all those games that are practically identical, but you have to go through every single possibility to know whether that one leads to a win, and if it leads to a defeat, you have to try out which of the moves lead to a defeat. Or was it the one before? (Darn, that is 137 more possibilities to explore for just one more move. Or 18,000 or so for the next two). And then, at the end, after having played trillions of games (which you all lost!) you win one single game, and then you claim that this was the only game that counted, the others were only rehearsals. Your strategy does not convince me.
It would be easier for you to build a better computer than the one you are playing against, or learn to play chess like a grandmaster. And even they make mistakes, sometimes.
I believe there are better ways to spend a life.
With no draws (and presumably no losses), you mean winning every game!
Here are some thoughts (I’m a retired chess teacher):
I was once distracted by a beautiful woman player who had a low-cut dress…
Plus, eventually you’re going to forget which moves you’ve already tried, and will end up repeating the same losses multiple times.
Most consumer chess programs give you the option to undo moves, even multiple moves all the way back to the beginning of the game. So you can already try this if you want. But for reasons already described, it probably won’t make a difference, unless you’re already a good enough player to identify which moves were the likely mistakes (and the stronger your opponent is, the harder that gets, because against a strong opponent, the difference between a good move and a mistake becomes extremely subtle).
There’s also the matter that forcing a win in chess might not even be possible, and almost certainly isn’t possible with black. There are three possibilities, and we know for certain that one of them is correct:
1: White can force a win.
2: Both sides can force a draw.
3: Black can force a win.
3 is considered extremely implausible (white moves first, and that gives an advantage), but it can’t be absolutely certainly ruled out. Which of 1 or 2 is true is unknown, but at the high end, the majority of games end in a draw, so the usual suspicion is that 2 is true: Chess is a draw with perfect play.
My wife and I, both novices, give each other one mulligan per game. It rarely affects the outcome – it just keeps one of us from losing more quickly!
And where’s the fun in winning every time, anyway?
I invented time travel some time in the future. As a result, I am haunted by the ghost of my future self. Based on your OP, I asked him to play chess. He said something ( I don’t know what. I don’t speak Yiddish) and challenged me to a game of Feudal or Talisman instead. So, results- unclear.
That looks like the right answer to me too. Your best move is the one where no matter what your oponent does allows you to make another move {[(where no matter what your oponent does allows you to make another move) where no matter what your oponent does allows you to make another move] where no matter what your oponent does allows to make another move… ad infinitum} which guarantees that you do not lose.
The OP question is basically a variant of asking, “Is chess solved?”
Asking whether a game is “solved” means asking whether there’s a perfect strategy that allows you to win, if you’re just faithful enough.
The go-to example would be tic-tac-toe. If both players follow the best-possible strategy, they will always draw. This is known and provable. So, no, you can’t win at tic-tac-toe - even with a time machine - unless your opponent is an idiot and doesn’t play perfectly. But if we’re assuming that he might be perfect and that our time machine allows us to be perfect then, in tic-tac-toe, the best that we can guarantee is a tie.
Chess is not solved but, generally, most two player abstract games that have been solved either favor the first player or draws and there’s nothing about the rules of chess that would lead a person to expect it to have a different result. As @Chronos says, if you’re playing black then we’re leaning pretty hard to the idea that your best result is going to be a draw.