Mathematics and chess Middle game xxxoooo*ooooxxx +- 45 x 10^6 11 - 15

G SHAPIROY Middle game xxxooo*oooxxx +- 40 x 10^6 16 - 20

The number of possible chess positions after White’s first play move is 20 (16 End game xxxo8*8oxxx +- 5 x 10^6 21 - 25
pawn moves and 4 knight moves). There are 400 possible chess positions
End game xo*8x +- 5 x 10^6 26 - 30
after two play moves (first play move for White followed by first play move for
Black). End game o*8 +- 0.1 x 10^5 31 - Final
move
There are 5,362 possible positions (White’s second play move) or 8,902 total
positions after two play moves each. There are 71,852 possible positions or Logical possible positions +- 140.1 x 10^6 +1
197,742 total positions after four moves. There are 809,896 possible positions
or 4,897,256 total positions after 5 moves.There are 9,132,484 total positions Possible/playable chess games (Avg game 30 moves) +- 4,670,033
after 6 moves. From move 7 the possible positions stabilize as chess lines end, ~# Of total draw positions @ 7% of playable games +- 326,933
even from move 2 some chess lines end. There are +-10,921,506 total possible
positions after 7 moves. *=draw, o=winning/lose, x=other, 8=known end game combinations

The special draw, the King's draw, should occur a minimum of 32 times. The A guesstimate is that the maximum logical possible positions are somewhere
longest recorded game ended in a draw after 269 moves. in the region of +-140,100,033, including trans-positional positions, giving the
approximation of 4,670,033 maximum logical possible games, thus making
*** chess very playable.
There is a built in limit in the logical positions as the average chess game is When compared to the numbers available from online databases the actual
about 30 moves, 60 moves and above chess games are a rarity. Lots of chess number of games played so far , for reasonable players, seem to be
games end between moves 3 and the final move and the pieces decrease as somewhere in the region of +-2,910,286 which should be taken as a minimum
they are captured. In end game situations, the material combinations, their number for the possible logical games.
frequency and the number of moves needed to mate or draw are known and
it is in the region of tens of thousand, limiting the logical possible positions in See Shannon Number for the Upper bound for Random Chess.
an end game situation to hundreds of thousand.
Also, see this.
Phase Classification ~ # of positions Moves
How does math relate to chess?
Initial position * 1 0
This is a very interesting question. Somehow, chess seems related to math.
Opening xxo*oxx +- 5 x 10^6 1-5 There are at least 2 groups which you are only allowed to join if you are a
member of AoPS (Art of problem solving), which is a major math website.
Opening xxxooo*oooxxx +- 40 x 10^6 6 - 10 This isn't the right place to ask how music relates to math, but it is the right
place to ask how chess relates to math.

MATHEMATICS AND THE GAMES OF CHESS
Enrique Diaz G.
Our purpose for writing this article is to attempt to answer the question:
Is there any relationship between thinking mathematically and thinking in the
game of Chess? In other words, must a person possessing an active mind in
Mathematics become necessarily a good Chess player and have skills in
Mathematics?
It is necessary to point out that due to the subject complexity, our efforts
will be to explain basic characteristics of both
Mathematics and Chess which have been posed by well-known
Mathematicians and Chess players. Accordingly, we are not interested in
exposing facts, for example, from the Theory of Knowledge, Psychology,
Epistemology or going further into the technical and sophisticated aspects of
Chess.
To begin with, let us examine some qualities of Mathematics.
People having poor experience in Mathematics believe that knowing how
to add, subtract, multiply or divide enables them to say that they could
master Mathematics. Others possessing some skill in performing quick
calculations think they are "Mathematicians". In both cases, they indicate
they do not know about the meaning of Mathematics:
Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the
contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic
elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and
individuality. Though different traditions may emphasize different aspects, it is
only the interplay of these antithetic forces and the struggle for their
synthesis that constitute the life, usefulness, and supreme value of
mathematical science. (Courant& Robbins, 1941).
Even though at the beginning this definition seems difficult to
understand, it is the best approximation to comprehend the whole sense of
mathematics.
The first major step which the Greeks made was to insist that Mathematics
must deal with abstract concepts... On the basis of elementary abstractions,
mathematics creates others which are even more remote from anything real.
Negative numbers, equations involving unknowns, formulas, and other
concepts we shall encounter are abstractions built upon abstractions.
Fortunately, every abstraction is ultimately derived from, and therefore
understandable in terms of, intuitively meaningful objects or phenomena. The
mind does play its part in the creation of mathematical concepts, but the
mind does not function independently of the outside world. Indeed the
mathematician who treats concepts that have no physically real or intuitive
origins is almost surely talking nonsense .2 (Kline, 1962).
After this brief glance at the meaning of Mathematics, let us seethe most
commonly methods used in this science. According to Kline (1962), the major
method of obtaining knowledge is reasoning, and within the domain of
reasoning there are several forms. One can reason by analogy, which consists
of finding a similar situation or circumstance and to argue that what was true
for the similar case should be true of the one in question. Of course, one must
be able to find a similar situation and one must take the chance that the
differences do not matter.
Another common method of reasoning is induction. People use this
method of reasoning every day. Inductive reasoning is in fact the method
must commonly used in experimentation. An experimentation is generally
performed many times, and if the same result is obtained each time, the
experimenter concludes that the result will always follow. The essence of
induction is that one observes repeated occurrences of the same
phenomenon and concludes that the phenomenon will always occur.
 There is still a third method of reasoning, called deduction. Let us
consider an example. If we accept as basic facts that honest people return
found money and that John is honest, we may conclude unquestionably that
John will return money that he finds. In deductive reasoning we start with
certain statements, called premises, and assert a conclusion which is a
necessary or inescapable consequence of the premises.
All three methods of reasoning, analogy, induction, and deduction, and
other methods, are commonly employed. There is one essential difference,
however, between deduction on the one hand and all other methods of
reasoning on the other. Where as the conclusion drawn by analogy or
induction has only a probability of being correct, the conclusion drawn by
deduction necessarily holds. Despite the usefulness and advantages of
induction and analogy, mathematics does not rely upon these methods to
establish its conclusions. All mathematical proofs must be deductive.
Each proof is a chain of deductive arguments, each of which has its
premises and conclusion.
Finally, we point out that Mathematics must not be considered only as a
system of conclusions drawn from premises or postulates. Mathematicians
must also discover what to prove and how to go about establishing proofs.
These processes are also part of Mathematics and they are not deductive:
In the search for a method of proof, as in finding what to prove, the
mathematician must use audacious imagination, insight, and creative ability.
His mind must see possible lines of attack where others would not. In the
domains of algebra, calculus, and advanced analysis especially, the first-rate
mathematician depends upon the kind of inspiration that we usually associate
with the creation of music, literature, or art.3 (Kline, 1962).
Let us consider now the game of Chess showing some of its
characteristics and trying to find out any special method of reasoning that
Chess players could use. First of all, we are not going to explain the game as
accurately as in a Chess book. Instead, we will describe the game in a rather
general form.
A Chess game is a war between two medieval Kingdoms. In medieval
times, when Kingdoms were small, absolute monarchies, if the King was
imprisoned or captured the war was over. So it is in the game of Chess. The
game is finished when one of the Kings is captured. It may here be noted that
Chess is not necessarily a game of elimination but rather a game of tactics.
However, elimination of the opponent's pieces plays an important part since
by so weakening or wearing down your opponent the end is hastened. A
general definition is given by Mason: "Chess is a process of thought
conditionated and limited by the Institutes and Rules of the Game. The
judgments of thought are certified or visibly expressed upon the chessboard
in movements of various forces".4 (Mason, 1946)
The invention of Chess had been credited to the Persians, the Chinese,
Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Scythians, Egyptians, Hindus, Irish
and the Welsh. Although the precise origin has been lost in obscurity, it
continues to excite the speculation of men of learning at one end of
dilettantes at the other. Careful research has called it an "ancient" game; the
foolhardy are quite ready to underwrite exact dates. Other characteristics are
pointed out by Mason (1946).
But there is a mischievious imagination abroad that it is a difficult game. It
takes time. Its intricacies and profundities are not rightly within mastery of
the average human intellect. This, in a sense, is true enough, else Chess would
not be Chess. That it cannot be all known and mastered by anybody is truly its
chiefest, crowning merit. It is an instrument all may play, no two precisely
alike, and yet everyone his best. Too much time may be devoted to it. Chess is
a science as well as an art. In its exercise the tendency is to premature
mechanical facility, rather than to a clear perception of principles; though
upon this, of course, all true and lasting faculty necessarily depends.
Now, after these rough explanations about Chess, let us see what
attributes a person must possess in order to become a good Chess player. In
other words, what is the pattern of intellectual skills that makes one man a
good chess player while the other remains a duffer?
 In the first place, topnotch Chess requires visual imagery. Before you
make a contemplated move, you have to visualize how the board will look
after you make it, and then how it will be changed by your opponent's
response, and how it will look after you meet another possible answer. You
also need patience and restraint.
The quick thinker is often a fool. You need a good memory too. Memory
has two components: ability to retain, and ability to recall. The chess player
needs both. Finally, Chess calls for a certain kind of "reasoning". This
reasoning consists of joining together the above elements in order to give an
appropriate response to any move. This, then, is the "putty" which holds the
"blocks" together. The "blocks" are memory, patience and imagery. The putty
is associative reasoning. In daily life you use some of these processes, but you
also use other intellectual techniques. For instance, inductive reasoning is not
much used in chess, but it pays dividends in business and professional life.
Now, let us consider a mathematician with all his capacity to think
abstract concepts; with all his methods of reasoning, that is, reason by
analogy, induction, and deduction. Will he become a good Chess player? One
of the greatest mathematicians, Henri Poincare, denies this possibility:
In the same way I should be but a poor chess player; I would perceive that by
a certain play I should expose myself to a certain danger; I would pass in
review several other plays, rejecting them for other reasons, and then finally l
should make the move first examined, having meantime forgotten the danger
I had foreseen. In a word, my memory is not bad, but it would be insufficient
to make me a good chess player. Why them does it not fail me in a difficult
piece of mathematical? Evidently because it is guided by the general march of
the reasoning.5 (Binet, 1946).
Also, we have Binet's thinking about this matter:
Conversely, mathematicians have after been interested in Chess. However,
few famous mathematicians have been first-rate chess players ... I will readily
admit that a similarity exists between chess and mathematics, especially
between chess and mental arithmetic, without, however, ascribing to them
identical mental operations. Chess and Mathematics follow parallel lines. In
other words, the two types of study have a common direction; they
presuppose the same taste for complex mental operations which are both
abstract and precise; and they both require a strong dose of patience and
concentration.6 (Binet, 1966).
Now, let us consider a good Chess player, for example, the so-called,
chess master. Could he become a good mathematician also? One categoric,
answer is expressed by Horowitz and Rothenberg. ,
As strange as it may seen, the chess player's skill may have no relationship
whatever to any other facet of his personality or activity. The common belief
that expert chess players are good mathematicians is fiction. On the other
hand, good mathematicians may tum out to be good chess players ... One
conclusion and one only is a safe one: Expert Chess-players are able to play
Chess expertly.7 (Horowitz & Rothenberg, 1963).
Again Poincare points out that:
..., but, however extraordinary he (a chess player) may be, he will never
prepare more than a finite number of moves; if he applies his faculties to
arithmetic, he will not be able to perceive its general truths by a single direct
intuition; to arrive at the smallest theorem he can not dispense with the aid of
reasoning by recurrence, for this is an instrument which enables us to pass
from the finite to the infinite, (Poincare, 1946).
Another interesting point of view concerning this point is set up by
Abrahams:
The Chess process, being intuitive, Is not mathematical in the normally
accepted sense of that term. The fact that the Chess player is controlled by
rules makes him comparable to the user of a language with a grammar rather
than to those who explicitly use rules and formulae deductively. The Chess
player is sometimes in a position to be aided by learning and memory. But
essentially each Chess act is a fresh application of mind to data. Than which
nothing is less mathematical or less inferential.8 (Abrahams, 1951).
 To summarize then, we can say that up to now there is not any valuable
reason to support the theory that a Chess player must possess abilities related
to Mathematics. Lastly, we will indicate some ideas about Chess as a mental
process.
Why has Chess remained the world's most popular game for fifteen
centuries? Some authorities attribute the game's fascination to its mimicry of
war and all the other struggles of "real life' , others see Chess as a convenient
escape from reality. Some have found in Chess an admirable schooling for the
mind; others would agree with Ernest Cassirer that "what Chess has in
common with science and fine art is its utter uselessness" ... The great Chess
masters, like the great poets, the great composers, the great artists, the great
mathematicians, the great mystics, have the faculty of immersing themselves
in some creative process with a concentration, a finality, that is beyond most
of us... Chess concepts, like mathematical concepts, depend on formal
relations, and therefore exist forever, independent of the capacity of this or
that human brain to grasp them.
Now nobody, according to Abrahams (1951), has succeeded in explaining,
in casual terms, how the mind apprehends in the first place, or why it falls to
apprehend, whether in Chess or in any department of mental activity. The
working of the mind is a fact common to intelligent human beings, and Chess
has no exclusive claim of vision; for an element of vision or intuition, however
slight, is involved in any mental process which is distinguishable form reflex
action. But Chess is important because in it the functions of the mind are
relatively clear and the mental process is less assisted than inmost other
activities by positive rules. Within limits set by the material (the pieces, the
board, and the matrix of paths available to pieces on the board) the mind is
moving freely. Its scope is the possibility of the material, limited only by the
degree of vision available to the player. Its methods, whatever they are, do
not resemble the mechanical use of formula, which is the essence of
mathematics. The appearance of simplicity that characterizes effective mental
action is as deceptive in Chess as it is in any other department of science or
art. Imagination traces its own paths and develops idiosyncracies. Through
seeing a clever manoeuvre, an improving Chess player may find himself
quicker at apprehending an analogous idea; and, more remarkably, quicker at
apprehending a different clever possibility in a different setting.
Where Chess differs from many other activities is in that, in Chess, the
mind is "influenced" by notions and ideas that it has appreciated, rather than
"stocked" with them, or guided by them as one is guided by a signpost.
As to Chess ability, at the present stage of psychology, the nature of
imagination remains obscure. Therefore, it is impossible to speak about
special faculties for Chess, or even to establish any cognate relationship
between skill at Chess and other abilities. Certainly, famous Chess masters
have excelled in other, and various activities - from the music of Philidor and
the Shakespearian researches of Staunton to the medicine of Tarrash and the
engineering of Vidmar. Nor is there evidence of the transmission of Chess skill,
innate or acquired. Why some persons are good at Chess, and others bad at it,
is more mysterious than anything on the Chess board. "Chess can never reach
its height by following in the path of science ... Let us, therefore, make a new
effort and with the help of our imagination turn the struggle of technique into
a battle of ideas" ( Jose Raoul Capablanca).
REFERENCES:
Abrahams, Gerald. (195 1) The Chess Mind. London.
Binet, Alfred. (1966). Mnemonic virtuosity. New York.
Courant, Richard and Herbert Robbins. (194 1). What is Mathematics?. New
York.
Horowitz, I.A. and P.L. Rothenberg. (1963). Personality of Chess. New York.
Kline, Morris. (1962). Mathematics. A Cultural Approach.
Mason, James. (1946). The Principles of Chess in Theory and Practice.
Philadelphia.
Poincare, Henri. (1946). The Foundations of Science. Lancaster,
Chess http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Chess.html
Chess is a two-player board game believed to have been played in India as
early as the sixth century AD. In different parts of this world, different chess
games are played. The most played variants are western chess, Shogi (in
Japan), and Xiangqi (in China).
The western version of chess is a game played on an 8×8 board, called a
chessboard, of alternating black and white squares. Pieces with different
types of allowed moves are placed on the board, a set of black pieces in the
first two rows and a set of white pieces in the last two rows. The pieces are
called the bishop (2), king (1), knight (2), pawn (8), queen (1), and rook (2).
The object of the game is to capture the opponent's king.
In Ingmar Bergman's 1958 film classic The Seventh Seal, a Knight and his
squire arrive home from the crusades to find Black Death sweeping their
country. As they approach home, Death appears to the knight and tells him it
is his time. The knight then challenges Death to a chess game for his life.
Chess also appears as one of the games known to the WOPR computer in the
1983 film War Games.
Hardy (1999, p. 17) estimated the number of possible games of chess as
10^(10^(50)). The number of possible games of 40 moves or less P(40) is
approximately 10^(40) (Beeler et al. 1972), a number arrived at by estimating
the number of pawn positions (in the no-captures situation, this is 15^8),
multiplying by the possible positions for all pieces, then dividing by two for
each of the (rook, knight) pairs that are interchangeable, and dividing by two
for each pair of bishops (since half the positions will have the bishops on the
same color squares). (However, note that there are more positions with one
or two captures, since the pawns can then switch columns; Schroeppel 1996.)
Shannon (1950) gave the estimate
P(40) approx (64!)/(32!(8!)^2(2!)^6) approx 10^(43).
Rex Stout's fictional detective Nero Wolfe quotes the number of possible
games after ten moves as follows: "Wolfe grunted. One hundred and
sixty-nine million, five hundred and eighteen thousand, eight hundred and
twenty-nine followed by twenty-one ciphers. The number of ways the first ten
moves, both sides, may be played" (Stout 1983). To be precise, the number of
distinct chess positions after n moves for n=1, 2, ... are 20, 400, 5362, 71852,
809896?, 9132484?, ... (Schwarzkopf 1994, OEIS A019319). The number of
chess games that end in exactly n moves (including games that mate in fewer
than n plies) for n=1, 2, 3, ... are 20, 400, 8902, 197742, 4897256, 120921506,
3284294545, ... (OEIS A006494).
Cunningham (1889) incorrectly found 197299 games and 71782 positions
after the fourth move. C. Flye St. Marie was the first to find the correct
number of positions after four moves: 71852. Dawson (1946) gives the
source as Intermediare des Mathematiques (1895), but K. Fabel writes that
Flye St. Marie corrected the number 71870 (that he found in 1895) to 71852
in 1903. The history of the determination of the chess sequences is discussed
in Schwarzkopf (1994).
The analysis of chess is extremely complicated due to the many possible
options at each move. Steinhaus (1999, pp. 11-14), as well as many entire
books, consider clever end-game positions which may be analyzed completely.
Two problems in recreational mathematics ask the questions
1. How many pieces of a given type can be placed on a chessboard without
any two attacking?
2. What is the smallest number of pieces needed to occupy or attack every
square?
Beeler, M. et al. Item 95 in Beeler, M.; Gosper, R. W.; and Schroeppel, R.
HAKMEM. Cambridge, MA: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Memo
AIM-239, p. 35, Feb. 1972.
http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/hbaker/hakmem/proposed.html#item95.
"The Chess Variant Pages." http://www.chessvariants.com/.
Culin, S. "Tjyang-keui--Chess." §82 in Games of the Orient: Korea, China, Japan.
Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle, pp. 82-91, 1965.
Dawson, T. R. "A Surprise Correction." The Fairy Chess Review 6, 44, 1946.

The answers are given for the usual 8×8 chessboard in the following table Dickins, A. "A Guide to Fairy Chess." p. 28, 1967/1969/1971.
(Madachy 1979).
Dudeney, H. E. "Chessboard Problems." Amusements in Mathematics. New
problem max. min. York: Dover, pp. 84-109, 1970.

bishops problem 14 8 Elkies, N. D. "New Directions in Enumerative Chess Problems." Elec. J. Combin.
11, No. 2, A4, 2004.
kings problem 16 9 http://www.combinatorics.org/Volume_11/Abstracts/v11i2a4.html.
knights problem 32 12 Ewerhart, C. "Backward Induction and the Game-Theoretic Analysis of Chess."
queens problem 8 5 Games and Economic Behavior 39, 206-214, 2002.

rooks problem 8 8 Fabel, K. "Nüsse." Die Schwalbe 84, 196, 1934.

SEE ALSO: Fabel, K. "Weihnachtsnüsse." Die Schwalbe 190, 97, 1947.

Bishops Problem, Board, Checkers, Chessboard, Fairy Chess, Go, Gomory's Fabel, K. "Weihnachtsnüsse." Die Schwalbe 195, 14, 1948.
Theorem, Hard Hexagon Entropy Constant, Kings Problem, Knights Problem, Fabel, K. "Eröffnungen." Am Rande des Schachbretts, 34-35, 1947.
Knight Graph, Magic Tour, Queens Problem, Rooks Problem, Shogi, Tour,
Xiangqi Fabel, K. "Die ersten Schritte." Rund um das Schachbrett, 107-109, 1955.

REFERENCES: Fabel, K. "Eröffnungen." Schach und Zahl 8, 1966/1971.

Ball, W. W. R. and Coxeter, H. S. M. Mathematical Recreations and Essays, 13th Hardy, G. H. Ramanujan: Twelve Lectures on Subjects Suggested by His Life
ed. New York: Dover, pp. 124-127, 1987. and Work, 3rd ed. New York: Chelsea, 1999.
Hunter, J. A. H. and Madachy, J. S. Mathematical Diversions. New York: Dover,
pp. 86-89, 1975.
Kraitchik, M. "Chess and Checkers." §12.1.1 in Mathematical Recreations. New
York: W. W. Norton, pp. 267-276, 1942.
Lasker, E. Lasker's Manual of Chess. New York: Dover, 1960.
Madachy, J. S. "Chessboard Placement Problems." Ch. 2 in Madachy's
Mathematical Recreations. New York: Dover, pp. 34-54, 1979.
Parlett, D. S. Oxford History of Board Games. Oxford, England: Oxford
University Press, 1999.
Pegg, E. Jr. "Math Games: Chessboard Tasks." Apr. 11, 2005.
http://www.maa.org/editorial/mathgames/mathgames_04_11_05.html.
Peterson, I. "The Soul of a Chess Machine: Lessons Learned from a Contest
Pitting Man against Computer." Sci. News 149, 200-201, Mar. 30, 1996.
Petković, M. Mathematics and Chess. New York: Dover, 1997.
Schroeppel, R. "Reprise: Number of Legal Chess Positions."
tech-news@cs.arizona.edu posting, Aug. 18, 1996.
Schwarzkopf, B. "Die ersten Züge." Problemkiste, 142-143, No. 92, Apr. 1994.
Shannon, C. "Programming a Computer for Playing Chess." Phil. Mag. 41,
256-275, 1950.
Sloane, N. J. A. Sequences A006494, A007545/M5100, and A019319 in "The
On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences."
Steinhaus, H. Mathematical Snapshots, 3rd ed. New York: Dover, pp. 11-14,
1999.
Stout, R. "Gambit." In Seven Complete Nero Wolfe Novels. New York: Avenic
Books, p. 475, 1983.
Velucchi, M. "Some On-Line PostScript MathChess Papers."
http://anduin.eldar.org/~problemi/papers.html.
Watkins, J. Across the Board: The Mathematics of Chessboard Problems.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Across the Board: The Mathematics of Chessboard
Problems
I took great pleasure in reading Across the Board: The
Mathematics of Chessboard Problems by John J. Watkins.
This book is extremely well writen and is, no doubt, the best
exposition of the connection between the chessboard
problems and recreational mathematics. The author surveys
all the well-known problems about chess and the chessboard:
"can a knight follow a path that covers every square once,
ending on the starting square?" "How many queens are
needed so that every square is targeted or occupied by one of
the queens?" The problems are treated in depth from their
beginnings through to their status today. Using graph theory,
the author gently guides the reader to the forefront of
current research in this area of mathematics. Exercises are
provided to enhance the reader's involvement.
The book is organized in thirteen chapters. The first chapter
introduces the main topics with which we will be concerned:
knight's tours, domination, independence, coloring,
geometric problems, chessboards on other surfaces, and
polyominoes. The next two chapters deal with knight's tours,
from the earlier work of De Moivre, Euler, Hamilton up to
most recent results known today. Chapter four is devoted to
magic squares. The beginning of the chapter includes a
delightful presentation of the work of Muhammad Ibn
Muhammad, an African Mathematician who discovered a
very ingenious idea for constructing magic squares of odd
order. This construction was later on rediscovered by
Bachetin the early 1600s.
Chapters five and six generalize in different ways from the
ordinary chessboard. If we identify the left and the right
edges, the chessboard becomes a flat torus and the chess
pieces gain considerable freedom of movement since the
edges, in effect, disappear. If we identify just one pair of
opposite edges, we have a cylindrical board. Finally, we can
identify the top and bottom edges of the rectangle just as it
was done for the torus, and also identify the left and the
right edges, but this time with opposite orientation, so the
top and bottom are identified inthe normal way, but the
sides get a half-twist before they are identified. A rook in the
left-most column moving up and going off the top of the
board reappears at the bottom of the board in the same
column; but a rook in the bottom row going off the right side
of theboard will reappear at the upper left in the top row.
This makes the board into a the Klein bottle.
In chapters 7, 8 and 9 the central concept is domination. This
is one of the central ideas in graph theory, and is especially
important in the application of graph theory to the real world.
Of all the chessboard-domination problems, it is that of the
queen that continues to hold the most interest among
mathematicians. It is a remarkably difficult problem and one
that is far from solved even today, although there is much
that is known. One nice result from chapter nine is that
among chessboards with more than four rows, the 5x12
chessboard is the largest board that can be dominated by
four queens. I have a strong feeling that Across the Board will
reveal the beauty of mathematics to students, teachers and
math lovers.
Mohammed Aassila is a mathematics professor whose
research area is analysis. He is interested in mathematics
competitions and is the author of two books on the subject:
300 Défis Mathématiques and Olympiades Internationales de
Mathématiques.
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