I agree, and kind of included this in the "so, unless you had some way of dramatically compressing or simplifying this search space..." disclaimer. Having said

I agree, and kind of included this in the "so, unless you had some way of dramatically compressing or simplifying this search space..." disclaimer. Having said this, the nature of many chess endgames suggests that such a proof is not really possible, or at least would not be "simple". As an example, tempo / opposition flips games from draws to wins, etc.