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Subject: Re: Board games and mathematical complexity: a poll

Author: Angrim

Date: 13:53:58 12/11/02

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On December 11, 2002 at 12:00:12, Edward Seid wrote:

>Please rank the following games in order of mathematical (programming)
>complexity.  Also, if you can, provide a degree of magnitude to quantify your
>ranking.
>
>Western Chess
>Shogi
>Go
>Xiangqi (Chinese Chess)
>Othello
>
>Also, feel free to add any other games I didn't include.

I am interpreting this to mean dificulty of solving the game.
I have never played Shogi, but the rules seem similar to the
chess variant crazyhouse, so I'll use that one instead.
easy to hard:

1. Othello: game is at most 60 turns, and a low branching factor which
drops as you get near the end of the game.  Likely to be solved
fairly soon if enough effort is put into it.

2. suicide chess: has a higher game-state complexity than chess, due
to the ability to convert pawns into kings and no check rule, but the
opening advantage for white is higher and blunders are much more
likely to result in quick game termination.  likely to be solved in the
next 10-15 years.

3. chess: hard to solve.  likely possible but not really soon.

3.1 chinese chess: larger board than chess, but many pieces are
restricted as to which squares they can be on.  Maybe this should
be 2.9.  Same methods of proof should work for this as for chess.

4. crazyhouse: like chess, except that captured pieces change sides
and can be played on the board as a separate turn.  As a result
the game does not simplify down, and endgame databases are no use.
The solvability of this game depends on the size of the opening
advantage, which has not yet been determined.

5. GO(19x19): huge branching factor, and quite long games in which
blunders do not result in quick game termination makes it
unlikely that this game can be solved.  Unless someone comes up
with a mathematical approach.. this game is relatively easy to
apply math to, so there is some slight chance.

Angrim



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