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Shannon

Number of games in database: 2
Years covered: 1984 to 1990


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 page 1 of 1; 2 games  PGN Download 
Game  ResultMoves YearEvent/LocaleOpening
1. Shannon vs Simonet  1-0461984USA corrC32 King's Gambit Declined, Falkbeer Counter Gambit
2. E Schiller vs Shannon 1-0211990Casual gameC45 Scotch Game
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2) | Shannon wins | Shannon loses  

Kibitzer's Corner
Feb-08-09  whiteshark: <The number of Shannon <<<<>>>>> (a simple proof how deep chess can be)

Claude Elwood Shannon (1916-2001) was a famous electrical engineer and mathematician, remembered as "the father of information theory". He was fascinated by chess and was the first one to calculate with precision the game tree complexity of chess i.e. the number of possible chess games. He based his calculation on a logical approximation that each game has an average of 40 moves and each move a player chooses between 30 possible moves. That makes a total of <10^120> possible games. This number is known as the number of Shannon.

To a similar conclusion came Peterson in 1996. An interesting comparison is the estimation of the total numbers of atoms in the universe 10^81 . The number of legal positions in chess according to him, however, is about 10^50 .

All these calculations will suffer slight changes when we apply new rules to chess, such as the Sofia rule or further estimation of the effect of en-passant. However, the numbers are close enough to show you how deep chess can be.

Source: http://mathematics.chessdom.com/sha...

Feb-18-09
Premium Chessgames Member
  Tabanus: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/...:

An avid chess player, Professor Shannon built a chess-playing computer years before IBM's Deep Blue came along. While on a trip to Russia in 1965, he challenged world champion Mikhail Botvinnik to a match. He lost in 42 moves, considered an excellent showing.

Jul-10-16  paulgrow: Nice video on the number of possible chess games: https://youtu.be/Km024eldY1A
Jul-10-16
Premium Chessgames Member
  perfidious: <Let the Music Play>

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