From: Shadow <swalters@freenet3.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 94 10:54:31 PST
To: Mike Markley <mmarkley@microsoft.com>
Subject: Re: How Many Games of Chess?
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			  but now the sun shines cold
			    and all the sky is grey       (the cure)
		    the stars are dimmed by clouds and tears
	    and all i wish is gone away -- all i wish is gone away

On Fri, 1 Apr 1994, Mike Markley wrote:

> ----------
> | From: Lefty  <netmail!lefty@apple.com>
> | To:  <cypherpunks@toad.com>
> | Subject: Re: How Many Games of Chess?
> | Date: Friday, April 01, 1994 9:31AM
> |
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> | >This is tangentially related to crypto.  I've been reading A.K. Dewdney's
> | >I was glancing through the chapters on complexity,
> | >computabilty, and minimax trees, and I got to wondering something:  how
> | >many possible games of chess are there?  I know that it has to be a finite
> | >number, but I'm not sure how to go about finding this number.  Any
> | >pointers would be appreciated.
> |
> | It doesn't seem to me that this _can_ be readily calculated in any
> | reasonable amount of time.  It's not a simple (realtively) combinatorial
> | problem: the configuration of the board at any given point limits the legal
> | moves in an extremely nontrivial way.
> |
> | I believe I can get you as far as the second move, though: I make it to be
> | twenty-one possible openings and twenty-one responses.
> |
> | --
> | Lefty (lefty@apple.com)
> | C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.
> |
> |
> |
> 
> I seem to remember from way back in high school that the number of 
> potential moves by the third set of moves is on the order of billions 
> of legal moves. I am also pretty sure that it is not exponential but a 
> factoral growth. I don't think that it is possible to determine every 
> possible game.
> 
> Mike
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> Mike Markley              || The opinions here do not represent the
> mmarkley@microsoft.com    || opinions of my employer. Attempts to
> 			  || associate the two are pointless.
> 
>    "I want to look at life, In the available light"
> 					- Neil Peart -
> 
> 
Not to mention all of the repeating- non-ending games
	Shadow
p.s. i wonder if there is a "irrational" game....one that goes on to 
infinity but never repeats itself.....I would imagine not as there are 
only a finite number of possibilities for peices to exist on the board
it was an interesting thought whie it lasted....