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Amazing Chess Fact

The Shannon number is an estimation of the game-tree complexity of Chess. It was first calculated by Claude Shannon, the father of information theory. According to him, on average, 40 moves are played in a chess game and each player chooses one move among 30 (but in fact, there may be as few as zero -in the case of checkmate or stalemate- or as many as 218). Therefore, (30×30)40, i.e. 90040 chess games are possible. This number is about 10118, or a billion billion googol, as the solution of the equation 90040sup. = 10x is x = 40log10900.

The game-tree complexity of chess is now evaluated at approximately 10123 (the number of legal positions in the game of chess is estimated to be between 1043 and 1050). As a comparison, the number of atoms in the Universe, to which it is often compared, is estimated to be between 4×1078 and 6×1079.(ref Wikepedia.)

 
 

 

 

Historic Games Section : Games

This page has been made specially to host an epic game of a high standard. The game was a Premier Section game played during the Fifth Staffordshire Chess congress of 1969 held at Northicote School, Bushbury, Wolverhampton during the Whitsuntide holiday.

Alf J Butcher was one of Wolverhampton's Chess Club's strongest ever players. In 1969 his strength was formidable but his grade unknown at this time. He played an awesome opponent in the Fifth Staffordshire Chess congress of 1969. The opponent was no other than then a young 14 year old but now late Tony Miles the first British Grandmaster. Miles' only loss was to Alf Butcher and Miles went on to win the tournament's Premier section jointly with D W Anderton and P C Griffiths.

It would be interesting to hear from any club members or ex members or anyone who believes there was a stronger Wolverhampton player than Alf Butcher.

D W Anderton edited the congress bulletin jointly with G Homer.

 

 

Games Selection!

PGN Source file for these games

 

Accreditations:

Thankyou to Keith Bate for loan of The Staffordshire Chess Congress Bulletins.

References:

D W Anderton & G Homer(ed).(1971). Seventh Staffordshire Chess Congress: Spring 1971. p73-4

 

   

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Last Update: August 15, 2008 19:59