Oh, I can reconstruct how the game started; that’s easy! Now, how it looked after the first move is a bit less trivial…
And pawns can indeed promote to queens, Meeko, but I’m not sure I see the relevance to that… Incidentally, they can also promote to rooks, bishops, or knights, if the promoting player so desires, but this essentially never happens outside of chess puzzles. They cannot, however, promote to kings, remain as pawns after reaching the 8th rank, promote to nonstandard chess pieces, or promote to a piece of a different color (this last one also has shown up in a puzzle or two, and in fact it was such a puzzle that inspired the change in rules to disallow it).
Also, you’ve all missed one other condition for a draw in chess, which is in fact the most common: If both players agree that a game is a draw, it’s a draw.
Is this the visible universe they are talking about? Or are they talking about the whole universe, most of which we can’t see, let alone know how much matter is in it?
Definitely a great story. Definitely a short story (only 180 words). But not an Asimov story. It was written by Arthur C. Clarke. It was published in Asimov’s magazine.
According to USCF rules, either player may claim draw after 50 move pairs have been completed, without a piece being captured or a pawn having moved.
King versus king, knight, and bishop is a textbook won position for the side with the minor pieces–this checkmate can be obtained in less than 50 moves, provided the player knows how to do so. I admit, it is very difficult. This assumes, of course, that there are no other pieces on the board, or some other contrived position where one side may force stalemate or capture one of the minor pieces (if the bishop or knight is captured, the position is a textbook draw).
Chess puzzlers are such an inventive group, that I felt I had to qualify my post with that last sentence, lest I invite a nitpick!
Fox + James (‘The Complete Chess Addict’) estimate the number of possible different 40 move games as 25 * 10^115.#
They also say the number of estimated electrons in the Universe is 10 ^ 79.
I posted in another thread that a chess game must end by checkmate, stalemate, 3 time repetition or the 50 move rule.
Fox + James say the longest possible game is 5,949 moves.
50 moves, provided neither payer has moved a pawn or made a capture.
The World Chess Federation (FIDE) did allow 100 moves in certain positions, after it was shown one side could win by force, but olny taking longer than 50 moves (to move a pawn or make a capture).
As borschevsky said, Natch is a computer program to solve proof chess games (where a particular position can only be reached after the stated number of moves in one way.)
I think this is composed by Dunsany.
You can also agree a draw and claim a 3-time repetition. The 50 move rule (not 30) is called the ‘50 move rule’!
Federations have limited jurisdiction on what they can change (time limits are one example).
K vs. K+N+B is mate in 33 moves maximum (and usually shorter).
I think the game that caused FIDE (World Chess Federation) to apply 100 moves was by Grandmaster Timman. It was K, R + pa2 v K, black-squared bishop and pa3.
[QUOTE=Chronos]
They cannot, however, promote to kings, remain as pawns after reaching the 8th rank, promote to nonstandard chess pieces, or promote to a piece of a different color (this last one also has shown up in a puzzle or two, and in fact it was such a puzzle that inspired the change in rules to disallow it).
[QUOTE]
What about a Knight? You mean you can’t play chess with a Horse of a different color?
Also, chaning Colors of a pawn? I assume (Hopefully) you mean black to white or vice-versa. If Not, Chess is becomming way to much like Magic The Gathering.
Pawn 1
Creature-Chess Piece
At the end of your upkeep choose any one color. Pawn becomes that color until your next upkeep. If this is done put a time counter on Pawn.
At any time there are 8 or more time counters on pawn, it looses all abilities and becomes a copy of any other chess piece besides Pawn.
If a creature could deal damage to Pawn, but does not, you may tap this card to remove that creature from the game. 1/1
I did actually see a chess puzzle once where white was to move, and could (if it were allowed, as it used to be) checkmate by promoting a pawn to a black bishop (this worked by trapping the black king, since you can’t capture your own piece). In fact, the puzzle was set up in such a way that if White made any other move (including promoting to a white piece), Black had mate in two.
You also can’t promote a pawn to a green piece, or a blue piece, or an ultraviolet piece, but that’s hardly interesting (though I appreciate the M:tG analogy :)).
glee, are you sure about your two examples? I’m not convinced that K+2B can beat K+N (it seems like the opponent could force a trade of knight for bishop), and K+R+B vs. K+2N looks like an easy win for K+R+B (he should be able to force a trade of the bishop for one knight, and then either capture the other knight or keep it at a distance using the rook, leaving the textbook K+R vs. K).
That reminds me, if I can hop games for a minute, to a bridge joke I heard about a man playing bridge in hell, with the devil as one of his opponents. Guy picks up a perfect lay-down hand… ace-king-queen in all four suits, plus a stray jack. Depending on which version of the joke, he is sometimes wary enough to ask the devil about certain possible variants of bridge in hell that might defeat this hand… if there are other cards that rank above ace, maybe. But he doesn’t find the trick in any event, and bids seven no trumps, which the devil doubles and he, nervously, redoubles.
The devil leads out the ace of a strange green suit. “Having no hippogriffs?” The poor guy admits that he has none of these hippogriffs, and thirteen of them are led out against him, sinking him for a horrible loss. (what else do you expect??)
I’m certain - it’s all information from computer databases.
Basically the program generates all legal positions of the pieces required, then sorts them into order of mate, 1 move away from mate etc.
So if you have a forced win in a position, the computer can keep giving you the correct move to play.
Similarly it can give drawing lines.
In K+2B v K+N, the N can’t exchange itself for a bishop.
In K+R+B vs. K+2N, there’s usually no point in exchanging B for N, since most positions with K+R v K+N are drawn.