English

An upper bound for the number of chess diagrams without promotion

Computer Science and Game Theory 2025-01-17 v2 Combinatorics

Abstract

In 2015, Steinerberger showed that the number of legal chess diagrams without promotion is bounded from above by 2×10402\times 10^{40}. This number was obtained by restricting both bishops and pawns position and by a precise bound when no chessman has been captured. We improve this estimate and show that the number of legal diagrams is less than 4×10374\times 10^{37}. To achieve this, we define a graph on the set of diagrams and a notion of class of pawn arrangements, leading to a method for bounding pawn positions with any number of men on the board.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2112.09386,
  title  = {An upper bound for the number of chess diagrams without promotion},
  author = {Daniel Gourion},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.09386},
  year   = {2025}
}