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Subject: Re: Number of interesting positions

Author: Steffen Jakob

Date: 22:58:31 07/28/98

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On July 29, 1998 at 01:44:17, blass uri wrote:

>
>On July 29, 1998 at 00:33:50, Steffen Jakob wrote:
>
>>On July 29, 1998 at 00:28:25, blass uri wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>On July 29, 1998 at 00:08:52, Steffen Jakob wrote:
>>>
>>>>On July 28, 1998 at 08:46:21, Komputer Korner wrote:
>>>>
>>>>[...]
>>>>
>>>>>The number of legal positions is the most important stat as far as computers are
>>>>>concerned.  10^42 has been put as a lower bound with 10^60 as an upper bound. I
>>>>>am not sure as to the mathematical accuracy of these though.
>>>>
>>>>It would be very interesting to estimate the number of positions where one side
>>>>doesn't have a "decisive advantage" which is of course not easy to define. A way
>>>>to estimate this number could be to set up positions randomly
>>>
>>>I do not understand how to set up positions randomly.
>>>If you set up a general random position then practically all the positions you
>>>set up will be illegal.
>>>For example if one side has 6 queens and 6 rooks it is illegal because at least
>>>5 queens and 4 rooks were pawns in the beginining of the game.
>>>maybe 1 out of 100000000000000000000 will be legal but you have not infinite
>>>time.
>>
>>Of course I meant to set up a random legal positions. Could be done by >making random legal moves.
>
>In this case not all the legal positions will have the same probability.

Yes, distribution is a problem, which leads to other complex questions. E.g.
what is the probability that we have a certain amount of material in a random
position? Even if we could generate random positions easily without making
random moves we had to know this.

>>>> and evaluate them
>>>>with a computer. Then you get the relation between balanced and
>>>>unbalanced positions which has to be multiplied with the number of legal >positions.
>>>
>>>>Greetings,
>>>>Steffen.



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