Is chess infinite?

These numbers seem to have more zeros than there are chess positions.

I notice the earlier paragraph in the wiki article estimates only 10^47, which is far fewer positions than atoms... but that paragraph doesn't mention the number of moves limitation.

So,  who knows...

I was just sitting here wondering why number-heads could not come up with a reliable number. Then I remember promotion of pawns. There would have to be calculations that included promotion of all 16 pawns on the board.

Maybe chess is infinite.

I'm sure this thread, like so many 'can chess be solved' threads, will become infinite.

chess is not infenite there are somewhere between 1x10^120 and 1x10^123 possible legal possitions.(1x10^120 is a one wiht 120 zero's behind it, so a lot.) 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Another question is how many moves (perhaps this was touched on earlier in the thread and I missed it) can there be in a chess game? Is that infinite or is there a certain point millions (or more) moves into the game where a stalemate is unavoidable?

If not, then perhaps in that way chess is infinite.

-Mark R.

You might take a look at the link MrOyer posted a bit ago. It seems to be saying, in an 80 move game, it is at least 10^123.

Sorry for capitalizing your name incorrectly there Mark. I just occurred to me the MR does not stand for mister.

lol

Mr. Oyer... we can go with that.

By the way, there are more ways to mis-spell my name than there are atoms in the observable universe.

-Mark R.

I calculated that there is 755,578,637,259,143,234,191,360,000,000,000,000,000 ( seven-hundred fifty-five duodecillion , five-hundred seventy-eight undecillion , six-hundred thirty-seven decillion , two-hundred fifty-nine nonillion , one-hundred forty-three octillion , two-hundred thirty-four septillion , one-hundred ninety-one sextillion , 360 positions quintillion, if no piece has been taken and no pawn has promoted. NOTE: This is the number of POSITIONS, NOT the number of all possible games. SECOND NOTE: This gigantinc number was calculated my calculater, paper, and the old noggin, which means this number may not be correct at all.

[deleted] It's really funny. There exists at least one way for all 16 pawns to promote. (Demo below.)

In the above, the white king is in check, so you won't be allowed to make an illegal move and promote the fourth pawn...

Oh right! Duh.

I think we've all missed at least one check in our careers. :-P

haha, this is fun. Ill read you an extract from a book, doing my best to translate.

Is chess in danger of being exhausted?

[...]

Let's see the how many positions can occur after white's first move. [...] 20. After black's respones, exatly 400 positions occur.

From here number raise rapidly. After white's second move exactly 5.362 positions can occur (dr. fabel, <<die schwable>> 1935) while after black's second move the positions that can occur are exactly 71.852 (calculations of buvton and gotvait, 1945 [...]) The number of positions that occur after white's third move has not yet been calculated, (the calculation presents immense difficulties), [book written at around 1967] but it is around 800.000. As for the number of positions that can occur after black's third move, they are around 9.000.000!!

That is, we reached just the third move and the fiderent combinations are already a few million. Imagine what astronomical numbers can occur e.g. after the 10th or 20th move!

[...]

If we suppose each chess game is 40 moves, and that in each of his move the player can decide among 30 different possible moves (in fact, the possible moves are more) the it arises that there can be played as many different moves as is the number 10 ^ 120.  [...] So you perceive it's size, we will compare it with other big numbers. e.g. the number of hair of all the people on our planet  is just 10 ^ 18. If again, we considered that the whole earth is consisted of sand, the number of grains would be 10 ^ 23, fur less than 10^120. (which is supposed to be the number of all games in chess that last until move 40.)

But we won't stop here.

[...]The famous chess computer, representative of ''fairy chess'', N petrovits, has calculated (1948) the number of all games and above 40 moves and found the number 10 ^18900 which can't be illustarted neither with light years, and the distances at space, neither with the number of all electrons in space!

What do you say now? :D

I got it all intil that last paragraph 

We have to be careful though, because while the growth rate is hyperastronomical even by the 3rd move by black, as games progress some branches die (checkmates appear).

Plus we have to account for draw control. And stalemates.

Here's my question: How many checkmates are there? (Of any natural number of moves.)

I think I'm funny.