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Subject: Re: Solving chess

Author: Angrim

Date: 13:45:33 08/04/05

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On August 02, 2005 at 11:12:38, Eberhard wrote:

>Quantum computers could solve chess in combination with alpha-beta pruning
>(iterative deepening), theoretically speaking.
>
>These techniques each reduce the average number of branches of the game tree by
>2 - and jointly the combination appears to reduce the tree size to one that
>might be completed in a practical time; about 10^(50/4) ~ 10^13 positions, which
>could be completed on a single computer in a year at only ~100,000 positions per
>second.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_chess

what a bunch of gibberish, I hope someone less lazy than myself
cleans that wikipedia page up.

Firstly, alpha-beta pruning reduces the size of the search
tree, not the number of legal positions, so it doesn't modify that
10^50 value which they claim for the number of legal positions.

Secondly, quantum computers don't reduce the branching factor of the search
tree in any sense at all, and are irrelevant to the discussion.

So far, every argument that I have seen for the solvability OR insolvability
of chess has been flawed, so it is unknown to me whether it is solvable
in any practical amount of time.  I am still casually working on solving
a number of chess variants that look easier than chess to solve.

Angrim



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