Can chess END in the STARTING POSITION?! 🤔

Can chess END in the STARTING POSITION?! 🤔

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#funnychess 

I had a curious thought today: is it possible for a game of chess to END in the STARTING POSITION? And specifically, without the players mutually agreeing to a draw or one of the players resigning.

This is kind of a silly question, but I realised that I don't think I've ever seen this described before. After a brief moment to reflect, yes, it is possible.

Effectively, we can make use of the knights, which are the only piece that can develop prior to any pawns move, and hence, are "reversible"; and draw by threefold repetition.

If we assume that the initial starting position of the board doesn't count as a "seen position" (given that it exists prior to move 1), then we need to move both the king's and queen's knights at least once to achieve the first threefold repetition being with the starting position.

Hi!  I'm vitualis, the chess noob, and I run the "Adventures of a Chess Noob" YouTube channel and blog.  I'm learning and having fun with chess! 

I restarted playing chess recently after my interest was rekindled by the release of "The Queen's Gambit" on Netflix.  I mostly play 1 or 2 games a day, and am trying to improve (slowly!).  I document some of my games and learning experiences on my blog and YouTube channel from the perspective of a beginner-intermediate player!


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