How Many Chess Moves Are There?

[@debblez]

how are you not gonna show us the two bishop moves that havent been played what

[@itisALWAYSR.A.]

Are you planning what I'm planning? 👀

[@keejay98195]

it’s double ambiguous non capture bishop checkmate and hikaru has done it in his first (and second because he moved wrong bishop) game since, so it’s been done now

[@mistabutd1101]

@@keejay98195no this video does not account for disambiguation and is purely the bishop moving to said square whilst causing x#

[@keejay98195]

@@mistabutd1101 ah ye true, however the double ambiguous one is the only legal move which has never been played. bishop moving from a corner with check is not a valid move in a game

[@FernTheRobot]

@@keejay98195 I don't think it is fair to compare the conclusion of this video to that of Paralogical's, because one focuses on the pieces while the other focuses on the notations. The two non-king moves defined by this video that haven't been played are bishop capture checkmates from black. Also in the Paralogical's video, there are still lots of legal moves that hasn't been played, not just the double disambiguated bishop non-capture checkmate. Being one of the rarest category of moves doesn't mean it's the only legal move which has never been played.

[@kookeekwisp]

-Small note, check or checkmate king moves are impossible on the corners, since discovered checks need at least 1 space in both directions of a king to be open, and the corners are the only spaces where that's impossible.- Edit: i am dumb

[@theanimatedchemist]

You aren't! In fact, I figured out the first value on paper and didn't consider impossible moves. It wasn't until I started acquiring data that I realized some moves weren't being played and that's when I figured it out. My code actually still searches for impossible moves because I'm too lazy to remove those lines haha.

[@MichaelGrundler]

I was about to comment the same but then I found this comment and continued watching. Notably I also only thought about the corners and didn't consider the moves along the edges - or the bishop moves for that matter.

[@nogenora6903]

Loved the video. Also got baited by the illegal king moves. Had the comment written with timestamp and step by step calculations, but decided to finish the video first.

[@ScienceMeetsFiction]

Prediction (or post-diction?): all of the missing moves have already been played by now (August 7, 2024) by people deliberately setting up the board in those positions.

[@theanimatedchemist]

Analysis for July 2024 taking place as I type this. I'm going to say not a chance. After 5,700,000,000 games there were still ~100 moves unplayed. I didn't specify the remaining moves so I doubt it they were all played in the 90,000,000 games. If someone managed to see my video, code up a similar analysis, and go through 5.7 billion games in less than a week just to play the remaining moves, I would like them to teach me how to code!

[@Tremoneck]

​​@@theanimatedchemistI saw the video today. I've got a solution that goes through the 1.8TB of data in about 17 hours. But I don't have a big enough drive to hold it all. Found more harddrives, currently downloading.

[@theanimatedchemist]

You're clearly a wizard.

[@TTCGD-123]

I like both of your chess and chemistry content, you deserve to get more views and subscribers.

[@davidwagner6116]

Not just chemistry. It is statistical mechanics, canonical ensemble.

[@ashleychan5590]

Good video! Another idea is to use the Algebraic Notation as it’s a widely used notation in addition to the PGN

[@michaelgray4045]

Ok now let’s do how many chess notations are there

[@StentorCoeruleus]

Yeah multiple rooks mean that you need to specify which one

[@akitteninabowl8872]

@@StentorCoeruleus rooks can't be double disambiguated, but bishops, knights and queens can

[@ozAqVvhhNue]

@@akitteninabowl8872 true, didn't even realise that. But they are still undercounted in this video since you can disambiguate rook moves with the file or rank.

[@mickeyrube6623]

I literally thought that was what this video was about. What exactly is he counting then?

[@akitteninabowl8872]

@@mickeyrube6623 the number of possible chess moves without disambiguation because it doesn't really change anything

[@whtiequillBj]

I just came by your channel. What I find most interesting is how many people liked your Chess video then all of your Chemistry videos. This is my first video. I'm sure that isn't a surprise. 🤪

[@endthisnonsense7202]

Counting this way en passant moves are not additional moves, they move to the exact same square as a normal capture from the same spot. The only difference is the position of the captured piece (a pawn). But if that is relevant than the entire position of all pieces on the board should be relevant. A move with the same notation is just not the same in different positions. Now THAT calculation would be much more interesting, and the outcome would explode. This calculation calculates the number of notations, not the number of chess moves.

[@-chess_player-]

no, it doesn't count disambiguation

[@Censeo]

@@-chess_player- that is because he counted long notations which never need disambiguation. However he counted too many if long notations don't notate en passants

[@theanimatedchemist]

I chose the one that does specify en passant. I'm not sure if that is common of long notation or simply a feature/option of the program I used to "clean" the database pre-analysis. It would change "a5xb6" to "a5xb6ep" if it was actually en passant.

[@AbelShields]

​@@theanimatedchemistinterestingly, my first intuition was that you'd never need to disambiguate en passant, but then I thought you might need to if there were two possible things to capture... But then I realised again that you don't, since the other piece that the pawn would capture would block the pawn moving two squares for en passant. I don't think disambiguation is necessary in any situation, but I had to think about it lol

[@zacherychapman8474]

@@AbelShields You'd need to disambiguate if there were two of your pawns on the same file that could capture an opponent's pawn on their fourth rank. (One ordinarily, and one by en passant)

[@shemtov3929]

A small correction: The bishop has eight less moves than what you said. When moving a bishop from the corner of the board to the other corner, you can not create a check (nor checkmate) since the bishop was already watching the exact same squares. And of course you can't create a discovered attack by moving a piece from the corner of the board ;) Edit: Oops

[@anderslarsen4412]

The "Dirty Dancing" reference won you a like & a sub from this 47 year-old amateur chess player & Patrick Swayze fan. Great video all around!

[@theanimatedchemist]

I guess I'll have to watch more of his movies then!

[@lolvonlolipopp]

Doing a discovery checkmate with the king in the middle of the board seems like an almost impossible task without staging the game.

[@z0ru4_]

5:30 wait… 420? how could the king make a discovery check/checkmate if he is in one of the corners?

[@z0ru4_]

I entered enter way too early 😂

[@guillermoagullomarti9]

Jup. Thought the same thing

[@davidd1936]

One thing missing. If multiple of the same piece can make a move the notation will specificity which is moving. E.g. instead of saying xd4 it’ll say exd4 if either the C or E pawn can make the capture. This is true for any piece (not king) including the bishop since a pawn can be under promoted to a bishop. Those moves are likely the ones that haven’t been played.

[@bluebod2264]

He’s only counting the move itself, not its notation.

[@notchmath9642]

2:20 I don’t think En Passant is really a different move. The pawn moves from the same square to the same square in either case. To me, that’s more like how capturing a knight or capturing a bishop are not listed as different moves. Your pawn is doing the same thing/move, it’s only the enemy piece which is differing between the two scenarios.

[@theanimatedchemist]

When the white a-pawn is on a5 and captures a black pawn normally it must have been on b6. If the white a-pawn captures via en passant then the black pawn must have been on b5. While a standard PGN agrees with you and won't differentiate the two, I utilized something called "enhanced hyphenated" notation which would actually add the letters "ep" and make it much easier to differentiate between regular pawn captures (a5xb6) and en passant (a5xb6ep).

[@l3tho_]

@@theanimatedchemist The problem is, that when you go by PGN you also have to include disambiguated PGN moves. But i agree with you that en passant is a different move, because there is different piece movement on the board than a normal pawn capture.

[@VenomousCamel]

@@theanimatedchemist I'm not familiar with "enhanced hyphenated" notation. Does it also designate stalemates, insufficient material, 50 move rule, 3-fold repetition? Or does it, like normal PGN, just end?

[@theanimatedchemist]

The program I use to "clean" the database is called pgn-extract. As far as I know, the output I get doesn't indicate stalemate or other reasons for a draw; however, you can choose to analyze databases for such results. For example, I could choose to output only games with checkmate, 50 or 75 rule games, 3 or 5-fold repetition games, and stalemate. There may be others I am missing. Link to the program is in the description.

[@crowreligion]

5:32 Another error here. If king move started from the corner, you can't discovered check because the corner square isn't blocking anything. And for squares next to corners like a2, the only line you are blocking is the a file. So for you to discovered check there, your rook or queen must be on a1, and black king must be on the a file. Which means you can't move your king to a1 or a3 from a2 and discover a check or checkmate. Considering these cases, you should remove 12 no capture + moves from corner starting moves, and 16 no capture + moves from square-next-to-corner starting moves. The same goes to no capture #, capture +, and capture #, so you'll have to remove 28×4 = 112 moves there Edit : Oh wait nvm he explained it

[@hdbrot]

5:40 Not just for simplicity, castling is a king move.

[@JimmyVermeer]

I think you miscounted the number of possible checks with the King. Not only the edge of the board but also the next square inside that edge (b2-b7-g7-g2). Since the King cannot have been adjacent to the opponent's King to begin with, and moving to the edge of the board also cannot result in a discovery.

[@svenweiland3322]

Yes it can. For example both kings and a rook can be in the same file while your King is in one "almost corner". That leaves the King with multiple discovered check moves to the edge of the Board

[@svenweiland3322]

King on b2 other King on b7 rook on b1 and King moves to a2 for example

[@aarnaytc63]

@@svenweiland3322 Maybe somehing like King from g8 to h8 cant result in a checkmate

[@jemsuper]

@@aarnaytc63and he excluded that already…..

[@svenweiland3322]

@@aarnaytc63 what jemsuper said

[@MozzarellaWizard]

And yet I still somehow choose the bad moves

[@theanimatedchemist]

We suffer from the same problem. I just turn it around and think of myself as an expert at picking the worst move in a position.

[@ozAqVvhhNue]

Come on, this needs to get as many views as the one Paralogical did.

[@imdartt]

first off, this video is good and i dont intend to be mean but there are 2 things wrong with the count of moves in this video 1. pawns moving from the third rank or 2 squares from the second rank have the same notation either way 2. disambiguation is completely forgotten. i would give them a pass because they seem to be a new chess player, but they have clearly already seen the Paralogical video which has disambiguation as a key part of the video i would estimate the correct count to be ~60k per color, or ~120k total

[@peupepeu]

bro this guy never said about NOTATION, but moves. For example even in a disambiguation occasion, the piece is still going to the same square, and the only thing that changes is the notation, not the piece going there.

[@peupepeu]

Another example is the en passant: the notation will be the same, (exd4 would be a move with the pawn capturing the pawn on d4 or d3) but the difference is that he's capturing a pawn in different squares, that results in different "moves" with the same notation.

[@Mastervitro]

Can you solve Chess by simply calculating these possible moves and just moving your pieces to optimize said ratios?

[@eyezuel5307]

En passant is still notated as if it was taking a pawn on the 6th or 3rd rank so notation-wise, there are 12 less pawn moves than you said

[@ATrueZen]

51k views, chess channel prophecy has continued

[@babuu2009]

5:40 if the king is in the corner it cant check or mate because there cant be any pieces behind to do a descovered check/mate

[@zanfur]

King can't cause discovered check when moving from the corner, or along an edge. You'll have to subtract 60 from the "King check" counts.

[@zanfur]

Ha I should have continued watching a bit longer.

[@haidarhaidar9092]

​@@zanfur Same her 😂😂😂😂

[@3141minecraft]

What are the 2 bishop moves that are not played?

[@tobiasstork9480]

I cannot imagine a move like Ba1-h8#.

[@fernandomaboni9820]

​@@tobiasstork9480I think this one is literally impossible

[@FTsandbag]

It’s probably bishop capturing something in the centre of the board with checkmate, since capturing for checkmates on files 2/7 is very common, 3/6 less so, and 4/5 I have never seen that I remember

[@josephmarrow5598]

This is a complete list of every possible move, however it is not a complete list of every possible PNG move. You fail to take into account moves for you would need to distinguish which of multiple pieces of the same type move to a square

[@firexgodx980]

Castling can result in a check mate and check

[@Adamqad]

7:28 aren’t there a few more illegal king moves when the king is one square to the side of the corner since it can’t discovered check a king in the corner because they would have to be next to each other to achieve that which is illegal

[@valkopuhelin2581]

No, the attacking piece can be in the corner instead.

[@Adamqad]

@@valkopuhelin2581 oh yeah I didn't consider that

[@TheGreatDanish]

There are two moves. Moving your kings pawn forward 2 spaces and flipping the table

[@valkopuhelin2581]

Great video, thanks! I too was left wondering about your exact definition of a move, like distinguishing ep from non-ep, or not showing stale mates. Some of this was implied, like if it mattered what sort of piece was captured, so I think you did end up at the value you were looking for. 😊

[@dimitriskontoleon6787]

To be fair, this calculation is true, only if you white the full move every time. If you just want the short king of writen moves, is much more complex to calculate. E.g is not the same Rc1 with Rcc1 or R1c1 or even more rare Ra1c1. In order to forced right the full move Ra1c1, you need 3 rocks, in specific place in order to forced white the full move.

[@grimanium]

Technically you missed some pawn moves as the pawns from black go to the first rank instead of the eighth. Similarly given the definition that a move is what it's written as, the two step bishop move at the start is the same as the one that already travelled one. And just to throw some fun into the ring: think about disambiguatied moves xDD

[@MichaelACromwell]

You may wish to consider moves that result in a stalemate, which have a special notation.

[@theanimatedchemist]

@@MichaelACromwell I’ve looked at a variety of PGNs and haven’t seen a specific notation for stalemate other than simply the last move followed by 1/2-1/2. I’m either looking in the wrong places, bad at searching for them, or both. Got any examples? Also, I *am* (now) looking for stalemates!

[@MichaelACromwell]

@@theanimatedchemist I love your level of detail. It is to be admired. (And feared.) Yes, the notation is to follow the move with 1/2-1/2, but if check and checkmate are categories, I think this counts too. I wonder how the engines you are looking at mark it. Presumably they must.

[@theanimatedchemist]

@@MichaelACromwell I know I can go into my profile and sort games that end in stalemate. The “raw” pgn wont include anything other than 1/2-1/2 but “annotated” will include { Draw by stalemate. } as a comment after the final move played. I don’t believe the databases I’m downloading have that annotation on every game.

[@Optik2]

Great video, I'd just like to point out whether we are counting disambiguation and double disambiguation, because I'd like to see how many more moves would happen if you accounted for that.

[@Mrbraun99]

Hi I think you are missing a lot of moves. There are situations where multiple piece can move on the same square, so you have to specify using rank or file (or in very special cases both). So Rf5 can have different forms like Raf5, Rbf5, Rcf5, ...

[@olma1702]

As I can see the chess videos do much better than the chemistry. Congratulations! This is although why I got here, but then I found your series on Mass Spectroscopy and I'd really like to see a sort of this videos about NMR, if that is possible. Anyway, nice work! I will keep an eye on your chanal.

[@theanimatedchemist]

NMR is on my list of things to do for chemistry but I said the same thing to myself 2 years ago. Definitely possible but I teach high school level so I would probably have to leave a lot more of the "why?" out for NMR than I did for IR/MS. I can reveal the only thing written in the script (file created in 2022) says "Welcome fellow chemists" so I suppose that's more than nothing but you might be waiting a while!

[@Darkness001LP]

i would expect the rate at wich new moves are played to go down since there are less remaining unless someone specifically goes for it

[@theanimatedchemist]

Not only that, if the number of games played/month drops that will affect it as well. It's been about 18 months since Lichess last had a 100M game month.

[@hsr-firefly]

if you count the pgn, en-passant has the same pgn as the capturenormaly since theres no possable situations that they can be done at the same time

[@maxborisful]

How does castling add 6 extra moves to the king's total? The king can only castle from it's starting square which would increase the possible moves on that square from 5 to 7. So 2 extra moves for castling.

[@dpcubing1521]

he also counted checking and checkmating (with the rook)

[@maxborisful]

@@dpcubing1521 ok makes sense now

[@alexpotts6520]

Technically are "moving a piece and forcing a draw" and even "capturing a piece and forcing a draw" also kinds of moves? (The first one can occur through repetition or stalemate. The second can only occur through stalemate since captures aren't a reversible move.)

[@theanimatedchemist]

Just responded to someone who said I forgot stalemate. Technically the moves are already counted but I could find the move that causes stalemate and even insufficient material. I think I would draw the line at reptition though but it would be interesting because half the comments would say "No, it's the *first* move of the sequence which counts!" while the other half of the comments would be saying "BUUUUUUUUT it's the *last* move of the sequence which ends the game!"

[@MultiAwesomered]

Third time's gonna be the charm?​@@theanimatedchemist

[@chair547]

It appears you have forgotten disambiguations. All rook and queen moves can be disambiguated and all bishop and knight moves can be disambiguated or double disambiguated

[@ckq]

He's not talking about that type of notation, he's looking at starting square to ending square instead of naming the piece.

[@0fs105]

How ridiculous to see a "subscribe" out of chemical elements in a chess video. And I love it

[@theanimatedchemist]

C He S S or C H Es S W H I Te and B La C K C He C K Pa W N Bi S H O P or Bi S Ho P or B I S H O P or B I S Ho P Ca Pt U Re and Ca Pt U Re S D I Ag O N Al [yes, that is D for deuterium which I think is acceptable] Ca S T Le and Ca S T Le S [might as well count T for tritium too while I'm at it!] or Ca S Tl Es [without using T for tritium] Probably some others.

[@unanec]

Not showinf thoose two moves is criminal

[@sonicwaveinfinitymiddwelle8555]

fun fact: the chess video boosts your view count on the chemistry videos too

[@theanimatedchemist]

Not according to the analytics 🤣

[@sparshsharma5270]

​@@theanimatedchemist Now make analysis as to how your views changed (on Chemistry videos) after you uploaded this chess video!

[@theanimatedchemist]

@@sparshsharma5270 I’m imagining quite an analytically uninteresting yet highly amusing result. Might be worth it for the lulz as the kids say. Wait. Do they say that anymore?

[@crowreligion]

4:19 No no no no You can't check or checkmate while moving a bishop from a1 to h8 or a8 to h1 or in the other direction as it attacks no more squares. Even discovered check is impossible there as you started from the corner. Edit) Oh wait nvm he explained it

[@ShihammeDarc]

Sorry for asking but did you add short and long castle mates? I couldn't figure out from the video if you did.

[@theanimatedchemist]

@@ShihammeDarc yup right about here: 5:40

[@ShihammeDarc]

@@theanimatedchemist thanks!

[@Itz_Sophia19]

Bishop corner check and checkmate is possible because of discorvered

[@cmyk8964]

I don’t think normal and en-passant captures should count as “diffefent” moves.

[@joshuakerr3868]

well R4a1xe6# is my favorite move

[@puffinbasher]

I don't see how bishop from A1 to H8 can ever be a check.

[@bluebod2264]

The bishop is controlling the exact same squares on A1 as it is on H8, and there can’t be any pieces behind it to expose the enemy king to attack

[@BingjunYang]

y didn't mention the disambiguated moves(like Ngh4 and Nfh4), I think they should count as they're written down and recorded differently from just Nh4, different positions matter anyway

[@theanimatedchemist]

In this case there are equivalent moves: Ngh4 = Ng2-h4 Nfh4 = Nf3-h4

[@BingjunYang]

@@theanimatedchemist ok thanks

[@jefftaylor1186]

Well, the number of possible chess positions is around 10^123. So….the amount of moves themselves…we might need to go into parallel dimensions

[@weeblol4050]

how about when you can move 2 of the same pieces to the same square ex. Nab3 Ndb3, Nbxc5 Ndxc5. Also since en passant has the same notation as the normal capture I wouldnt count it.

[@ThatGuywithNoFacecam]

Next video idea: calculate *all* the possible chess positions.

[@londonalicante]

We had a look at that on codegolf stack exchange: how many bytes does it take to represent all positions? There are positions you can draw which are legal but not possible. For example you can't promote a pawn until at least one pawn has either captured something or been captured, as the pawns otherwise get in each others' way.

[@blockshift758]

"it took me 2 months to ana-" gotta relesse those code now. Maybe get someone to improve it by 1,606,204% or even 40,832,277,770%

[@mathguy37]

ah the parker percentage

[@ytmndman]

But what if you include moves where they have to specify which piece moves? Like Nge2 or Rad1.

[@5gearz]

The more important side of chemistry

[@theanimatedchemist]

Chemistry is so agonizingly close to being an anagram for "i try chess"

[@thedudehimself69420]

This is not a hate comment. I had this idea before, but my dad wouldn't let me post anything about it. I wrote 12 programs for bishop moves, bishop promotions, kingside castles, king moves, knight moves, knight promotions, pawn moves, queenside castles, queen moves, queen promotions, rook moves, rook promotions. I ended up with more than 30K moves excluding the impossible ones and including disambiguations by file, rank and both.

[@theanimatedchemist]

@@thedudehimself69420 you defined “move” differently. I did something similar (before switching to what I showed here) but only looked for checkmates. I just looked back at what I did and the checkmates total (including “impossible” ones because I’m too lazy to take them out) is nearly 13,000. After removing impossible moves and then including regular moves and checks and something over 30k certainly seems right to me.

[@TraurigeWelt]

I think the en passant value of 4 is wrong.

[@rtg_onefourtwoeightfiveseven]

"NOTE: At the 8 minute mark I say the "sets are identical" and I am referring to the size of the set." _happy category theorist noises_

[@theanimatedchemist]

I'm not sure what a category theorist is but you can put me in the happy-to-have-made-a-category-theorist-happy category.

[@notchmath9642]

Do you have a list of all remaining moves?

[@theanimatedchemist]

I do but with July about to end I will wait until analyzing that database before deciding whether to post them.

[@ozAqVvhhNue]

@@theanimatedchemist It'll only be a matter of time before they'll be posted by someone else who is also doing this analysis. But I beg you to not post them too soon anyway. I think it would ruin this mystery in some way... :(

[@JnetDMK1234_c]

Revel check /mate 6:40

[@ytozylea8869]

“200 ELO Bullsh*t”

[@l3tho_]

Nice and interesting video, but I am a bit contradicted about the use of PGN to distinguish different moves. Technically, a capture, check, or checkmate are not really different moves, the piece moves the same either way. While the case can be made for captures being different moves, since they also remove another piece from the board, checks and mates are not **really** different from the same move without it, just because they affect the game differently. If we say that they are different, because the PGN is different, you should have included disambiguation and double disambiguation as well. Maybe that would be an idea for a follow up video, but i doubt it will be as easy to calculate, although the number should be small enough to use an algorithmic approach to find them. To summarize, when referencing the PGN for moves, disambiguation has to be considered, when not, only moves that are a different piece movement should be.

[@theanimatedchemist]

Instead of standard PGN I used "long notation" which the program I used to clean up the databases (pgn-extract) calls "enhanced hyphenated long algebraic" form. "Disambiguation" explicity defines the start square and end square which is what "long" notation does just for every single move. "Long" notation made my life a lot easier when coding everything. It actually finds all the "ambiguous" moves but the drawback is when reading the "long" notation, unless we are also looking at the board, we have no idea if any move is truly ambiguous.

[@rogerkearns8094]

I was thinking this, though pawn captures are unambiguously distinct, of course.

[@Censeo]

​@@theanimatedchemist is the long notation different when a pawn captures a piece on that square or captures a piece next to it (en passant)?

[@iwersonsch5131]

Think PGN is not the notation that this calculation applies to, you're probably thinking of long algebraic notation (and i'm not sure what you're doing to note down en passant as a separate move)

[@iwersonsch5131]

Ah you linked which notation you used. Are there still unplayed king moves if you always disambiguate the non-King pieces (e.g. Qd1-a4+) but never disambiguate the King, e.g. Kc2-d3 becoming Kd3? For the rook moves, how common is the rarest move if you always disambiguate by the direction the rook moved in, e.g. Rd1-d7 becoming R7d7?

[@iwersonsch5131]

oh yeah i suppose disambiguating the rook dimension that changed just leads to the same outcome as disambiguating it fully

[@AndyAndyson007]

Great video, but you arent covering all illegal king moves. You did consider Ka2Kb2, but you did not conside Kb1 to wherever. This cant cause a discovered because the king would need to be on a1. This applies to Kc1b2 aswell. Younare therefore not accounting for 4 moves per half corner. Totaling 92 instead of 60 illegal king moves. Therby bringing the amount of moves down by 128. Interestingly, this would total more than 45 additional king moves in the final* grafic. So you must've accounted for this. As a final question did I miss any impossible moves?

[@theanimatedchemist]

A king on b1 can cause a discovered check or checkmate if the king moves to a2, b2, or c2. Yes, the opposition king cannot be on a1 [edited to add] or even c1 in this instance but that's irrelevant.

[@AndyAndyson007]

Oh, forgot that that the opposing king could be in the far corner

[@stevenru4516]

Very cool video

[@pausuperxd6396]

Definitely more than 10

[@zimmejoc]

Shannon’s number.

[@Nickname_42]

the most of the moves are bad or suboptimal moves, there are only a few or just one best move every turn

[@bluesparrow-hx5qf]

Whats the point in calculation the possible moves for a singe figure?

[@CatSurfer]

Wouldn't corner bishop checks and checkmates be since they can be discovered attacks?

[@georgezhang1573]

You can’t unblock anything from a corner, since the blocked piece would have to go off the board

[@CatSurfer]

@@georgezhang1573 You're moving TO the corner. You could move fron d5 and discovered check

[@georgezhang1573]

@@CatSurfer the moves removed were only the corner to corner ones

[@tristanridley1601]

Not at all what I expected, but not bqd either.

[@theanimatedchemist]

"...but not bqd either" is exactly the level of expectations I'm trying to set here :)

[@Chomta]

What are those 2 bishops move lol maybe we could try to achieve it

[@GrandmasterOfchess-w8i]

This is deep

[@shcottam]

Forgot about stalemate

[@theanimatedchemist]

You have no idea how much this comment has annoyed me for the last 3 days! Part of the reason is I can see the sense to it because sometimes it is the only way to save yourself from defeat; however, I also think the forest is deeper and darker when it comes to draws. For stalemate, I will admit because there is a final move it can be easily identified and tracked. However, usually the use of 1/2-1/2 doesn't provide any information as to whether it is stalemate or the players agreed a draw so it's a bit annoying to find. For insufficient material, it's the same thing. There was a final move which can only be made by select pieces which hypothetically makes it easy to identify and track but the same issue arises in regards to identifying them. Annoying, but doable. For repititions, which is the "repitition" move: the first of the squence or the one which triggers the end of the game? Additionally, the repeated position does not have to occur on successive moves so is this a separate category? Finally, what about players agreeing to a draw when it is not one of the above situations? All that being said, I don't think it really changes what I've presented as *technically* both stalemates and insufficient material moves are a subset of the data I already have. I must admit I am intrigued so perhaps I will revist this idea in the future...considering I'd have to search 5.7billion+ games again, hopefully you're patient!

[@theanimatedchemist]

I may have spoken too soon. I checked Jan 2013 and while the program I used can separate "stalemate" and "insufficient material" it does not do so perfectly. There were at least 2 games classified as both and they were correctly identified as stalemates and incorrectly identified as insufficient material. So if I continue, it'll likely be for stalemate only because it's simpler.

[@genehenson8851]

Half the comments are just people who didn’t finish watching the video.

[@stanieldev]

in 2028, please make an update for this video lolol

[@theanimatedchemist]

I hope you don't mind I made an update after 2 months (but 3 months of databases)!

[@danielhallback]

Came for the Chess maybe I’ll stay for some chemistry 😅

[@Jack_Likesmath]

*“Il Vaticano”*

[@laithfattoum1511]

What about double check

[@theanimatedchemist]

@@laithfattoum1511 I believe Aaron Nimzowitsch put it best: “Even the laziest of kings flees wildly in the face of a double check.”

[@maelstrom57]

I fail to see why you counted en passant as 2 moves. Whenever a pawn can capture another e.p., it's always the only capture it can make on that file.

[@piercexlr878]

It's total of moves in the game as a whole that are possible. Taking en-passant and taking normally are 2 different moves

[@maelstrom57]

@@piercexlr878 A move is 3 things: a piece, a source square and a target square. Everything else about it (is it a capture, check, castling, etc.) can be unequivocally determined by looking at the position where it is played. Therefore there's no useful distinction between an e.p. capture and a regular pawn capture and they shouldn't be treated as different moves. Edit - You don't even need to know the moved piece; the source and target squares are enough.

[@maxborisful]

I believe it's to take into account that en-passant is only possible from 5th and 6th rank. This not only pawn capture pawn. A pawn can take any piece along it's way plus from 5th and 6th rank also has the extra option of e.p.

[@piercexlr878]

@maelstrom57 If captures are being seen separately it already breaks your definition. Since he's counting captures your definition I'd obviously not the one used

[@maelstrom57]

@@piercexlr878 It doesn't break my definition for pawn moves since a pawn is either a capture or it isn't: whether it's a capture is just extra info that doesn't count toward the total number of moves.

[@georgemacgill8980]

201 elo bullshit Love the video

[@theanimatedchemist]

On the road to 2900!

[@skepley]

Capturing en passant or regular aren't really different moves. The piece being captured is on a different square but that doesn't really matter. I think its more reasonable to count the number of distinct strings of algebraic notation possible which you seem to agree with because you are distinguishing between captures, capture checks, and capture mates. But this would also suggest that en passant is not a distinct move since there is no distinction in the algebraic notation.

[@AOOA926]

Well done, you’ve earned a sub!

[@stibiumowl]

Lets go another chemist who plays chess like me.

[@VivianAttler]

Mmm chemsistry

[@Penguin4096-si9fz]

nice video I also tried watching your chemistry video but I haven't learned Chemistry yet (will start in september) but I've learned chess. I assume this is why you have much more chess video views. I Sulfur Uranium Boron Sulfur Chromium Iodine Beryllium-ed to you 8:56 "just much more important, of course" ouchk

[@dpcubing1521]

NIce! you didn't count disambiguating notation, such as when there are two rooks on the same file so you need to specify which rook moved to the square. this really just doubles the amount of possible moves for the most part (doesnt apply to kings or pawn moves that arent captures (and probably something else that i forgot about)). anyway i just think that might be a fun calculation

[@volodyadykun6490]

1. A lot 2. Definitely not

[@Torstenr16]

Hmm I think you’re a bit to liberal with the king check(mates). If a king moves along the edge it is unable to create a discovery.

[@Torstenr16]

Haha I should’ve watched til the end.

[@matthewe3813]

google en passant

[@N_enee]

now i wanna know the exact number of possible games combination resulting in checkmates

[@theanimatedchemist]

Well, I hope you can be patient. I'm reanalyzing some of the databases in the hopes of being able to estimate something along these lines.

[@N_enee]

@@theanimatedchemist wow what a work, i was ironic since i knew that its something so hard to estimate or study around, i appreciate ur hard work :)

[@Cl0udPvP]

You should change your name to “The Chessimated Chemist”

[@AchrafCodeur]

I never watch your chemistry videos but I have watch your two chess videos

[@Majorfatal1]

Great

[@GraysonLovesHisMama]

hi mr animated chemist