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The Longest Possible Chess Game

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Re: The Longest Possible Chess Game

#2
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Re: The Longest Possible Chess Game

#6
One thing that I wondered about when looking at the longest recorded professional games that occurred in real play was at what point they reached a position that is actually solved in a tablebase. In particular, chess endgames involving only 7 pieces were explicitly solved by computer search in 2012. (But I also wonder if bringing those solutions to bear in a real game would involve ignoring the 50-move rule, since tablebase solution for these positions may often require more than 50 moves to complete.)

On tablebase-informed endgame theory, some of the professionals in these ultra-long games should probably have resigned long before the actual end of the games, except that they can also assume that their opponents don't know the full solutions.

Re: The Longest Possible Chess Game

#7
I thought the 50 move rule has been lifted for a few cases where a position is known to require more moves to win.

However, http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/10... doesn't mention that, and even has the in some sense stronger "a game is drawn if any series of at least 75 moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.", which doesn't require either player to claim the draw, and, thus, cannot be avoided.

So, even if the players wanted it, a game can't be longer than somewhere around 96*75 or 7200 moves.

Re: The Longest Possible Chess Game

#8
post #6

One thing that I wondered about when looking at the longest recorded professional games that occurred in real play was at what point they reached a position that is actually solved in a tablebase. In particular, chess endgames involving only 7 pieces were explicitly solved by computer search in 2012. (But I also wonder if bringing those solutions to bear in a real game would involve ignoring the 50-move rule, since t…

Professionals may try to get a draw by getting their opponent to make an error under time pressure, even if they know their position theoretically is a lost one.

That even happened back in the time when games got adjourned after x moves (sort of an example: https://www.chess.com/blog/NimzoRoy/a-famous-bishop-vs-knigh...), so should be more popular nowadays, if the losing party has more time on the clock, or thinks to know the particular endgame better.

Re: The Longest Possible Chess Game

#9
post #5

A user who is banned asked in this thread why you can't have an unlimited-length game where kings just move back and forth. The answer is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_repetition

All that the 50-move and threefold repetition rules do is permit one player to claim a draw; the game may continue if both players wish to play on. (It has happened, particularly threefold repetition where the repetitions are spaced far apart and the players don't have much time.)

There are actually new FIDE rules as of 2014 or so, where after 75 moves, or a fivefold repetition, the game is immediately declared drawn without the need for a player to take action.

Re: The Longest Possible Chess Game

#10
post #7

I thought the 50 move rule has been lifted for a few cases where a position is known to require more moves to win. However, http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/10... doesn't mention that, and even has the in some sense stronger "a game is drawn if any series of at least 75 moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture." , which doesn't require eithe…

The 50-move rule was extended for certain types of endgames, but then it was felt that keeping a list of exceptions like that was kind of silly, and they reverted back to the 50-move rule in all situations.
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