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Subject: How To Beat These Pesky Computers: Increase The Size Of Chess

Author: Graham Laight

Date: 03:15:01 02/25/06


Instead of playing on an 8x8 board, play on an 80x80 board, with each side
having 80 pawns, 20 rooks, 20 knights, 20 bishops, 10 queens and 10 kings - each
of which must be taken to win the game (I'll call this "super chess").

For illustration, late me make some sweeping assumptions about chess: suppose
that each position has an average of 37 moves, and that a chess computer looks
at 2 billion (2*10^9) positions per move. In super chess, there would be an
average of well over 10*37 = 370 moves per position, because rooks, bishops and
queens would have more moves, and knights and other pieces would also have more
moves available on average, so lets say that the average number of moves would
be 1000 per position.

In chess, the number of ply the computer can search comprehensively is:

37^n = 2*10^9
log(37)*n = log(2*10^9)
n = log(2*10^9)/log(37)
n = 5.93

We all know, of course, that extensions can reach a much deeper level than this.

In super chess, the depth of the comprehensive search is:

log(2*10^9)/log(1000) = 3.1 - which is not nearly enough to play well. The
extensions will be even more seriously impacted.

So - each time the programmers get a bit uppity, all we have to do is challenge
them to a game of super chess!

-g



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