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Subject: Re: Approximate # of Unique chess positions = (current estimated #)/4

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 17:24:52 01/18/02

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On January 18, 2002 at 19:49:25, Sune Fischer wrote:

>On January 18, 2002 at 19:26:08, Chris Hull wrote:
>
>>On January 18, 2002 at 19:06:26, Chris Hull wrote:
>>
>>>On January 18, 2002 at 17:13:29, Sune Fischer wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>Hehe, this was the old:
>>>>(64*(64 - 4)*62!)/((62 - 30)!*(8!*2!*2!*2*2)^2)= 1.1*10^42
>>>>capture a piece and turn a pawn into a queen:
>>>>(64*(64 - 4)*62!)/((62 - 29)!*7!*8!*2!(2!*2!*2*2)^2)= 1.33*10^41
>>>>
>>>>OK, so its about a factor 10 or maybe about same order of magnitude, they drop
>>>>fairly quickly though.
>>>>
>>>>>Here is the table of numbers Uri's program dumps as it goes (which is the list
>>>>>by category):
>>>>
>>>>I would like to know his approach ;)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I'm quite sure it is, unless someone can find a flaw in the product (which there
>>>>could be of cause;)
>>>>A number like 64 squares for the king is very optimistic, most of the squares
>>>>will be attacked, you can't be in check if it isn't your turn, and you can't be
>>>>in check by more than two pieces (right?) and so on, many rules that will
>>>>diminish the final product. In particular the pawn movement, pawns have a rather
>>>>limited number of squares they can go to, if just one pawn has half of 64
>>>>squares, then that is a factor 2 smaller yet.
>>>>
>>>>-S.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Does this take into account all the possible promotions? It is possible to have
>>>9 queens on one side or 9 rooks or 9 bishops or 9 knights, or any combination
>>>thereof. Each possible promotion will make the number larger. 31 pieces on the
>>>board has more possible positions than 32 because you have to take into account
>>>the promotions. If 31 pieces are remaining there is upto 3 possible promotions.
>>>Makes the calculation a little more difficult.
>>>
>>>Chris
>>>
>>
>>Oops, make that 9 queens or 10 rooks, or 10 bishops or 10 knights. Some days my
>>fingers work faster than my brain.
>>
>>Chris
>
>You do have a point Chris.
>I tried to refine the number a little bit:
>
>All 32 pieces:
>(64*(64 - 4)*23^4*21^4*18^4*14^4*62!)/((62 - 14)!*(8!*2!*2!*2*2)^2)
>= 5.13*10^36
>
>I put in the factor: 23^4*21^4*18^4*14^4
>because the d and e pawns has 23 squares, the c and f pawns has 21 squares and
>the b and g has 18, a and h has 14 (unless I miscounted;)

I do not understand it

if there are 32 pieces you can say that for every file you have exactly 15
options to put the pawns so you get 15^8 options to put the pawns.

I do not understand how do you get 23 squares for the d and e pawns.

It is clear that you can reduce the number of possibilities by a big factor with
32 pieces.

Things are less clear with less pieces.

I guess that 10^40 is close to the right number of legal positions and I am not
sure if the real number is lower or bigger.

It is going to be hard to prove 10^40 as a bound for the number of legal
position and I believe that it may be possible to get an estimate by the monta
karlo method of generating random positions and finding the number of legal
positions from them.

I have ideas to improve my program for the upper bound and it can help in
generating random positions but I did not find it as important to waste more
time about it.

Uri



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