3 ms·
One thing I always wondered is how many moves, on average, do you have to play before reaching a position that has never before seen on Earth? Or maybe the que
by GMoromisato 9mo ago
One thing I always wondered is how many moves, on average, do you have to play before reaching a position that has never before seen on Earth?
Or maybe the question should be what percent of games reach a position that has never before been seen?
- tromp 9mo agoI think that the average chess game played between humans contributes between 20 and 40 new positions (note that a 30 move chess games has 60 plies).
- bdamm 9mo agoYou'd probably need to make a determination of the skill of the players. A very strong player vs a novice could be scholar's mate most of the time.
- reassess_blind 9mo agoYes, the stronger the players, the more often they will both go deeper into established theoretical lines that have been played before.
- dpc050505 9mo agoA very strong player would show the novice the scholar's mate once and then move on to hanging tactics and pieces on purpose so that the novice starts seeing things, probably leading to positions that are a lot more rare.
- recursivecaveat 9mo agoApparently ~75% of the positions in the lichess database (as of 6 years ago) have only been seen once ever. Average game length is 30-40 moves, so for the completely average player it would be like 10+ moves I suppose. The stronger the players the longer it will take: I found some comments suggesting 20+ for high level players.
- matusp 9mo agoI don't think the math is correct here. The 25% of positions that have been seen more than once represent more than 25% of the occurrences. Even if all of them would be seen only twice, you should already see them in 40% occurences.
- squidbeak 9mo agoIt depends totally on the opening. You can be out of book and database far quicker than that for offbeat stuff, or in book far longer for popular openings. Another distinction needs to be made between positions seen and positions played. Almost every viable position will have been seen in preparation well beyond 10 moves. But seeing them on the board is rarer.