Chess is infinite: There are 400 different positions after each player makes one move apiece. There are 72,084 positions after two moves apiece. There are 9+ million positions after three moves apiece. There are 288+ billion different possible positions after four moves apiece. There are more 40-move games on Level-1 than the number of electrons in our universe. There are more game-trees of Chess than the number of galaxies (100+ billion), and more openings, defences, gambits, etc. than the number of quarks in our universe!
Few interesting facts about CHESS :
The longest Chess game theoretically possible is 5,949 moves.
After each side has played three moves, the pieces could form any one of over nine million possible positions on the board.
The record of moves without capture is of 100 moves during the Match between Thorton and M. Walker in 1992.
In the match between Britton and Crouch in 1984, the Black player did Check his opponent forty three consecutive times!
In 1985, the Soviet player Garry Kasparov became the youngest World Chess Champion ever at the age of 22 years and 210 days.
During World War II, some of the top Chess players were also code breakers. British masters Harry Golombek, Stuart Milner-Barry and H. O’D. Alexander were on the team which broke the Nazi Enigma code.
According to the America’s Foundation for Chess, there are 169, 518, 829, 100, 544, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 ways to play the first 10 moves of a game of Chess.
The word “Checkmate” in Chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the King is dead.”
Blathy, Otto (1860-1939), credited for creating the longest Chess Problem, mate in 290 moves.
In 1985, Eric Knoppert played 500 games of 10-minute Chess in 68 hours.
The youngest Master was Jordy Mont-Reynaud at 10 years, 7 months (1994). The oldest player to become a Chess Master was Oscar Shapiro, at age 74.
A boy gave General Rahl of the British Army a note from a spy that George Washington was about to cross the Delaware and attack. The general was so immersed in a Chess game that he put the note in his pocket unopened. There it was found when he was mortally wounded in the subsequent battle.
Albert Einstein was a good friend of World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker. In an interview with the New York Times in 1936 Albert said, “I do not play any games. There is no time for it. When I get through work I don’t want anything which requires the working of the mind.” He did take up Chess in his later life.
