Re: Disproof: Possible Number of Chess Games

Berkeley Brett wrote:

Assuming that is a reasonable estimate, this number is far, far
smaller than 10^(120)!!

So ... you're not computing the same number. Did you check out
the reference to Peterson 1966 to see what he was referring to?

The number of different chess positions is generally stated
to be on the order of 2*10^43 (no promoted pieces), or the order of
10^50 (promoted pieces), or 10^?? (including promoted pieces,
castling state, e.p. state and 50-move clock state.)
They are, of course, approximations.

The number that Peterson mentioned was the number of
different positions in all games of a length of 40 moves. That
is not clearly one of the numbers above. (The number is just
mentioned, without any source reference or indication of how
it was computed.)

--
Anders Thulin anders*thulin.name http://www.anders.thulin.name/
.

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