The draw percentage in checkers/draught and in chess are roughly similar, (anywhere between 50% and 60% at high-level play), despite checkers being solved and chess not.
From the computer point of view, it's more possible states to explore, so I think it makes things much harder
Say, allowing a purpose designed device, but limited to 1W of power consumption. Or some fixed energy budget (J) per move. Too strong? Take it down to 0.1W, 10mW or whatever.
That would degrade brute forcing as a viable approach, and bring it back to smart algorithms, clever ways to reduce the search space, etc.
In other words, not losing is heavily prioritised over winning in top chess, currently.
There are many possible ways to change this. My favourite is to make a win worth 3 points, and a draw 1 point. Both in tournament scoring and rating calculation.
I think this would incentivise more aggressive play, and disincentivise the constant slog of the same 15 top players playing mostly draws against eachother, and barely playing in more open tournaments with a bigger rating interval.
It's more that once you are in a losing position, winning is extremely difficult, and a draw is often the best thing you can achieve.
From there on, the losing side cares about not losing (because winning is almost impossible), but the winning side stills tries to win. Great chess players are the ones who can turn a losing position into a draw, or prevent draws from a winning position.
Yet occasionally we see players throw out unsound openings and they work out just fine because they're so complex and sharp they're hard to refute.
I understand how chess play works, being a tournament player myself. My point is not on the mechanics of chess, but the psychology of these players as a result of being brought up in a chess world where risk averse play is strongly awarded.
Ultimately, the core problem here is that these players choose to play in a way that leads to more draws, not that they're so unbelievably strong that it's almost impossible for them to beat eachother.
Just look at computer chess. They're way beyond human capability, and yet they still don't play perfectly. That should tell you how large the gulf is between current human play and perfect or even close to perfect play.
Yeah, this is my problem with bowling and golf. If you're a professional bowler, literally your only job is to knock down the pins. Why do anything else? If you miss one, you're bad at your job. Ditto with golf -- the hole is right there, just get the ball in it!
(Honestly not sure how sarcastic vs sincere I am in this comment.)
Parent made an argument by analogy, no evidence needs to enter the picture. At best you can say his analogy is flawed.
It's not even flawed, anyway. If cars not being allowed is supposed to refute the analogy, then an obvious answer would be that Othello playing programs could also banned in Othello competitions (given that the solution can't just be internalized by a human player).
I don't think you understand the purpose of games.
This is like saying since we have cars, why do people still race?
Or "why even do shooting competitions, when a robot or a person with a laser scope can easily win them?"