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Subject: Re: When Chess Will Be Fully Crunched Out

Author: Graham Laight

Date: 05:19:03 05/10/01

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On May 10, 2001 at 08:14:26, Graham Laight wrote:

>On May 10, 2001 at 08:01:16, Graham Laight wrote:
>
>>On May 10, 2001 at 05:46:24, Jesper Antonsson wrote:
>>>Great, then, hopefully, this is *the* point where we disagree. Now, the 3-fold
>>>repetition rule and 50-move rule are not mandatory, but they are there. How do
>>>you handle these positions in the search in Crafty (your "algorithm")? I would
>>>assume that you label them a draw and search no deeper. Perhaps you do not
>>>always *claim* the draw when such a position is at the root, but, as I said, you
>>>probably treat them as draws in the search. This is because mini-max "assumes"
>>>best play from both sides, and either the position is a draw whether 3/50 rules
>>>are used or not, in which case it is safe to return draw-score, or the player
>>>that is losing, using "best play", should claim the draw, in which case minimax
>>>should also return a draw score.
>>>
>>>So, from a search perspective, or solving-chess-perspective, we should treat
>>>these positions as draws, and when we do, a "good" chess algorithm in theory
>>>stops it's exponential behaviour at a certain depth.
>>
>>
>>Given the application of the 50 move rule, one can easily estimate an absolute
>>limit to the number of possible chess games.
>>
>>Number of pieces which can be taken: 30
>>Number of possible pawn pushes: 6 * 16 = 96
>>Total number of 50 move rule avoidence events: 96 + 30 = 126
>>Maximum possible number of moves: 126 * 49 = 6,174
>>Maximum possible number of plies: 6,174 * 2 = 12,348
>
>This also allows us to estimate when chess will be fully solved (all possible
>chess games generated).
>
>Max possible plies in a chess game: 12,348
>Number of years per increase of 1 in search ply depth: 3 (just a guess, I admit)
>Number of years to wait: 3 * 12,348 = 37,044
>Actual year: 37,044 - 2001 = 35,043

Oops - bit of brain fade there!

Should of course be: 37,044 + 2001 = 39,045

Allowing for the progress already made, that makes it about year 39 thousand.

-g

>This is, of course, assuming that Moore's law continues to hold (which is not a
>safe assumption based on only 35 years of history).
>
>-g
>
>>Average number of possible moves per position: 37 (you could work with a maximum
>>possible if you prefer)
>>Maximum possible number of games: 37 ^ 12,248
>>= 1.4 e+19,364
>>
>>-g



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