Author: Tanya Deborah
Date: 18:33:29 11/28/02
Hi to all ! I know that i answer this long time ago, but i lost the information, and i would like, that somebody can help me with this again... :) Can somebody explain me , how many positions exist in the game of chess, and how can we know it with certitude... I need to know the exact number of positions, that the game of chess have... It is possible to know it exactly???? I read in many articles, that the game of chess, has more positions than there are atoms in the Milky Way. This is completely amazing, but very hard to believe... This is like i read in a book : When the game of chess beguins, White has a choice of 20 moves. Following White´s 1st move whatever the move, Black has 20 replies. Thus 400 diferent positions arise after only 1 move my each side. After 2 moves, the number grows to over, 20,000, becoming astronomical after several more moves... The entire chess tree, has more positions than there are atoms in the Milky Way, although, because of the rules of the game, the number is finite. According to the rules, a game is normally drawn if 50 moves, pass without the capture of a piece or the advancement of a pawn, implying that a game can last at most 3150 moves, and consequently the chess tree can have only so many different positions. However, in practice the tree is far too large to consider this approach. Even at positions in the middle of the game, determining, the best move by searching the chess tree rooted at these intermediate postions is imposible. Very interesting.... Somebody can imagine how many atoms are in the Universe???? This number is unimaginable... But, is this really true? How is possible to know, which is the exact number that the game of chess has? or at least an aproximate number of positions... If somebody can post some information about this, i will realy apreciate that... All your answers are welcome... My best Regards! Tanya.
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