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The Computational Solvability of Chess

State spaces, game trees and the hazards of correcting the wrong quantity.

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Computational Mathematics · 2026

Principal finding

There are vastly more possible games than legal positions. Correcting the former with the latter is therefore an impressive numerical answer to a question nobody asked.

“It depends what you’re counting.”
— Prof. Emeritus Sir Reginald Enumeration, 1974