How Many Games of Chess: Exact answer given!
bill.stewart@pleasantonca.ncr.com +1-510-484-6204
wcs at anchor.ho.att.com
Tue Apr 5 18:57:08 PDT 1994
> > The natural conclusion is that the complexity of the problem depends on how
> > much of the game you consider to be the `endgame'. Thus, the actual number
> > of different chess games: 5
> >
> > 2) White mates
> > 1) Black resigns
> > 0) Stalemate
> > -1) White resigns
> > -2) Black mates
There are at least 3 others - there's
- Black/White's clock runs out
- game completion gets postponed for whatever reason
and never resumed
> i am not sure this is a very reasonable question without any
> restrictions. while this answer is humerous, i don't think anybody has
> addressed the fact that i can move a king back and forth between 3
> squares infinitely many times.
You can't - after the board has been in the same position three times,
the rules say it's a stalemate. This lets you calculate an upper bound
which somebody did a few days ago.
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