It is said that chess is a simple game. All you have to do is checkmate your opponent's King and the game is over. But would you know how many possible moves, including illogical but legal ones, there are to play the first four moves of the white and black pieces in a game? From 100 to 200, or 1,000 to 10,000? No, says the mathematician.
There are 318,979,654,000 (318 billion, 979 million, six hundred fifty-four thousand) possible ways. By the time you get to the problem of how many ways there are to play the first 10 moves, the number is 169,518,829,100,544,000,000,000,000,000 (169 0ctillion, etc.).
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