Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: How many possible moves in one position?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 12:37:28 12/07/97

Go up one level in this thread


On December 07, 1997 at 13:41:03, Jari Huikari wrote:

>On December 07, 1997 at 13:14:54, Don Dailey wrote:
>
>>>Could you tell me what is the maximum number of legal moves in a
>>>chess game position?
>>>A) In theory?
>>>B) In practice?
>
>
>>I don't believe this is known.  It might be fun to make a contest
>>out of this though.  Can somone post a position with a high number
>>of legal moves?   And the rest of us will try to better this?
>
>>The rules are:
>
>>1)  Must be a fully legal position, (no more than 9 queens for
>>instance.)
>>2)  Post in FEN.
>
>I think that some chess programmers must have thought this question some
>time.
>
>I remember a 'mate in one'-position having 175 or so legal moves. Over
>100
>of them were mates.
>
>Perhaps someone has statistics from 'real' games. BTW: What's the
>average
>number of moves precisely? I know it's about 30, maybe a little more.
>(In
>middlegame anyhow.)
>I already know, that minimum is zero (in mate or stalemate. :-)
>

the average is pretty well documented as being 38.  I know that the
max is over 200, because I had a move generator limit of 200 at one
point in Cray Blitz and Harry Nelson found a way to break this with
some odd problem position from Dr Lazlo Lindner...  I believe that
position hit 212 or something similar...



>(I _may_ have some use for these information in my new program.)
>
>					Jari



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.