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Subject: Re: Highest branching factor

Author: Chris Hull

Date: 11:22:32 03/13/03

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On March 13, 2003 at 03:22:00, Jouni Uski wrote:

>On March 13, 2003 at 01:52:34, Russell Reagan wrote:
>
>>I read that in the game of amazons, the initial position has 2176 legal moves!
>>Is there a game with a higher branching factor?
>
>How about bridge?!
>
>Jouni

Bridge has a branching factor of around 36 (pass + 7 level in 5 suits (clubs,
diamonds, hearts, spades, no trump)) and then get less as the bidding moves
higher.

http://www.durangobill.com/BrBidStats.html

calculated the number of bidding combinations at 1.28745650347 E+47.

For the play of the hand the branching factor is 13 and then progressively gets
smaller each round.

As an addition, here is the number of combinations in bridge,

1.28745650347 E+47  *   13!^4   * (52!/13!^4)  *    4     *    4

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^    ^^^^^^^^^^  ^^^^^^^^^^^^   ^^^^^^^      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
number of possible    number of   number of      number       number
bidding sequences     possible    possible       of           of
                      sequences   hand           dealers      vulnerbilities
                      in play of  combinations
                      the hand

You can see that bridge has quite a bit of complexity, but you already knew
that.

Chris Hull



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