Six Chimpanzees

     After mentioning the famous idea that 6 chimpanzees with 6 typewriters, given eternity, would reproduce all the great works of literature while typing randomly,  Irving Chernev (1950) continues:

     Suppose the six chimpanzees were at six chessboards, moving the pieces haphazardly about?  Assuming they made legal moves only, would they also reproduce the games of the masters of match their magnificent combinations?
     Despite the fact that millions of people have played millions of game of chess and that the pieces are not moved at random, still the games are individual and original.. Duplicate games are not in evidence even though one would think all the possible permutations would be quickly exhausted.
     Sometimes there is a duplication of ideas.  What follows is the most remarkable case I know.

     At the conclusion of the game, Dr. A. Alekhine, who was an onlooker, pointed out the astonishing resemblance of the final position and the concluding combination, leading to it, with that of a Hauptturnier game which he played in 1908.  Strangely enough, the colors were reversed in the Alekhine game and the opening moves entirely different !  The fact that Alekhine remembered all the games which he played deserves a passing reference.

*note: While the positions aren't entirely reversely identical, the area that effects the identical combinative idea is.

I've wondered, given all the chess that's played these days, online or otherwise, if there has ever been a completely duplicate game. 

I'm sure there have been many, just few that have been worth mentioning or identified as such.  Even this game wasn't identical, but the surprising combination was, and that in itself is noteworthy.

The chimpanzee analogy given by Chernev was only his way of presenting the real heart of the subject, the duplication of an unusual idea under entirely different conditions.

BTW, both Tihomil Dresga and Abraham Baratz were strong masters as was Friedrich Koenhnlein.

After having a second look, I swear of seen the second position in puzzles before. 

I once saw a tournament game that went like this. Up to a point, it, of course, looks very familiar.

It's estimated that the total number of chess games possible is about 10 to the power of 120. Assuming they each make one move per second, the six chimps would play 1.5 million games per year based on an average of 30 moves (60 plies). My feeble math tells me they would have to play for 6.6x10 to the power of 113 years. The universe has been in existence for 14x10 to the power of 9 years. Something tells me we could never know.

The feats of memory of masters are amazing.

I feel sure that memory is a vital element, if not the main one,  in being a top player.

Eternity is a long time.

Many masters could/can perform prodigious mental feats.  While having a phenomenal  memory certainly can't hurt,  I'm not sure how much it contributes.  I tend to believe that the mind which has developed such a memory (even if it's chess-centric) may often be more capable in other areas as well, making the memory capabilities related to chess success, but not particularly a prime of the reasons for it (especially since there are masters who can't perform amazing feats of memory).  One the other hand, I'm just guessing since I don't really know anything about the subject.

But then they would not BE Chimpanzees, would they ?

Seriously, what's the whole point of using Chimpanzees to show one is talking about completely random moves and then want to assume they only play legal moves ?

The original Champanzees on typewriter analogy didn't postulate they'd only type real words and never mess up grammar - it's completely unnecessary to add such restrictions, the analogy works well without them.

When using such a famous analogy, Irving Chernev should have put a bit more care and thought into it.

But then he would not BE Irving Chernev.

Many writers write for effect as much or more than for attention to detail.

I firmly believe such lack of attention to detail should be reserved for informal speech, not writing.

Although internet forums might be another exception

Well good old Chernev was pre-internet and more interested in chess than in chimps or infinity theorems.

What an arcane reference and extraordinary connection. I just went to Part III, Chapter 5 to read about it.

Fools mate, legal mate, and longer shot traps as well. You need to be more specific if you're not looking for an obvious yes.

Yes, eternity is a long time. If you mean infinity, everything that can happen will happen an infinite number of times. If you mean to the end of the universe when every last proton and subatomic particle has decayed, that might be a shorter period of time and the chimps may not have the time to complete all their games, especially if they repeat even a small fraction of the number of their games.

Well, like Chernev, I'm not going to get into a discussion about eternity and/or infinity. That's beyond by extremely finite ken.

Mine too.