What are the upper and lower bounds on chess tactics?

There are many, and most of them are as stupid as this: 

http://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor?diagram_id=2741556

Rarely have I seen such a stupid position. FFS! 

So you mean that we count only clever positions? I thought the guestion was "How many possible positions there are?". If only clever positions are accepted, then who can tell which positions are allowed and which not?

EDIT: sorry, my answer was not answer to your question about tactics.

No need to apologize! I think the question you raised is very relevant to the original question. Mine was rather at a tangent.

I tried to count the upper pound. This is wrong, too simple, but I tried:

There are 13 different ways the one square can be filled:

1. Empty

2.White Pawn

3.Black Pawn

4.White Rook

5.Black Rook

6. White Bishop

7. Black Bishop

8. White Queen

9. Black Queen

10. White King

11. Black King 

12. White Knight

13. Black Knight

The amount of filled Squares is 64 so we get upper pound number 13^64 = 1.96.. × 10^71

EDIT: Ou, this was already said in a first post... :)

Austin Powers pulled me aside & told me there are 1 million positions.

This is funny too? 

I was working out about all position with king and pawns but this took more than 5 hours and gave up. The all positions are maybe something about 40 zeros, I suppose, but probably less. Still big number.

960 if you seek adventure.

LOL !!

We have great mathematicians here...

Why are the black pawns shaped like a dick?

64*63 = 4032 possible king-king positions

corners has 4(corners)*3(connectiong squares) = 12

sides has 24(squares on side)*5(connecting squares) = 120

middles of the board 36(squares in middle)*9(connecting squares)= 324

total illegal positions is 12+120+324=456

Total legal positions 4032-456=3576

think the maths is slightly out?? 

Well, sitting is the most common one.  However, you can play lying down or standing too.  There are probably other, though less comfortable, positions too.

If that is what yours looks like, you might want to see a doctor.

you can always count on batgirl to give you objective information on any subject. Personnally I prefer to play upside down with my feet clinging on a tree, is it really uncommon?

4...and i know tham all 400,000,000 moves deep.

How many different chess positions are there?

A sexy man would never need to ask this question.

Thats why they make books...