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Subject: Re: 10^46 positions in chess - by Shirish S. Chinchalkar

Author: Vincent Diepeveen

Date: 05:54:51 01/08/03

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On January 08, 2003 at 08:38:52, S. Loinjak wrote:

10^43 was posted later.

However i doubt myself whether that is a realistic estimation because
it is nonsense to have positions with more than 2 queens for 1 side.

Those are not relevant to proof who wins or loses in chess.

>Dear chess friends,
>
>I'm interested in upper bounds on the number of legal positions in chess.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The most interesting article about this seems to be the one by Shirish S.
>Chinchalkar from the ICCA Journal, Volume 19:  Number 3  (September 1996):
>
>'An Upper Bound for the Number of Reachable Positions'
>
>Unfortunately the abstract is missing on the ICGA page:
>http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/ICGA/journal/contents/node19.html
>
>I read the limit he has calculated was about 10^46.
>As I don't have access to the ICCA Journal I want to ask in this forum whether
>someone has read the article and could tell me the exact number?
>
>In my opinion all positions should be treated different which would generate
>different sets of legal moves in a chess program (of course a bug free one - at
>least in the move generator).
>
>Therefor I'd also like to know whether the positions have been distinguished by
>- color to move
>- castle rights
>- e.p. rights
>
>I think to solve chess completely it might not be neccesary to take care about
>the 3-fold-repetition rule and the 50-moves-draw rule as they don't affect the
>set of legal moves in a position.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Maybe also someone knows how Richard Schroeppel came to his estimation(?!) of
>10^40 legal positions. I'm quite sure (after having done some calculations) that
>this is too low.
>
>--> http://keithlynch.net/cryonet/f/SchroeppelR.html (msg. 223 - on top)
>--> http://www.semaphorecorp.com/chess/
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>Best Regards and a Happy New Year,
>Sini



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