The ultimate chess puzzle
November 28th, 2010 by Vader
White to play and win:
from Horowitz and Rothenberg, The Personality of Chess. My favorite chess book, in part because it is more about human chess players than chess itself.
I am myself only a passable chess player. Once you’ve raced the Boonta Eve Classic, all other sports pale.
gst
November 29, 2010
Computers recently demonstrated that the opening position of checkers is a draw. It is thought, however, that chess will likely never be similarly “solved,” that is, to show that this position is either a win for white or a draw. There are too many positions.
Vader
November 29, 2010
As I recall, Horowitz and Rothenberg claim that someone calculated that there are roughly 10^127 different possible chess games. One followed by 127 zeroes. Of course, you would prune away ridiculous lines of play in any thorough analysis, but you can do an awful lot of pruning and still end up with more chess games than particles in the universe.