Author: Mike Hood
Date: 18:14:23 02/18/03
Go up one level in this thread
On February 18, 2003 at 09:08:55, Charles Worthington wrote: >On February 18, 2003 at 06:39:28, Andreas Stabel wrote: > >>On February 18, 2003 at 06:13:23, chandler yergin wrote: >> >>>On February 18, 2003 at 05:59:44, Andreas Stabel wrote: >>> >>>>On February 18, 2003 at 05:58:13, george wrote: >>>> >>>>>50.000.000 games for sure. >>>>I would say more than that, at least 57 714 511 games. >>>> >>>>Regards >>>>Andreas >>>Previous Posts from mathmaticians have estimated >>>"more than the grains of sand or molecules in the observable Universe" >>>10 to the 43rd power was a conservative estimate. >>>Steinitz in his Handbook also answers the question... but I don't >>>have the copy. >> >>So I was right then :) >> >>Regards >>Andreas > >I have seen ten to the 121st power listed in many books. That was years ago when >the old 8086 processors were considered fast so I dont know what computer could >possibly have given them that illustrious figure but there it is. :-) The problem with the "maximum number of games" is that ridiculous duplicates are possible. For instance, two players could deliberately repeat moves, reaching two-fold repetition many times, but being careful not to get into a three-fold repetition. It should be a lot easier to calculate the maximum number of positions in a chess game, using a number-crunching computer applying basic combination theory. Of course, some of these positions might be impossible to reach, but we're only after an estimate, aren't we? We're not going to argue if the final number is 5 too many... I hope :)
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