How Many Combinations Are There?

It should be 400 because both sides have 16 possible pawn moves and 4 possible knight moves.

20×20=400

I hate counting when there are no simple reductions. There is also the question on whether or not these positions are counted twice when they arise from different move orders. Not my cup of tea.

Btw, I think there is a guy out there who counted all the possible games up till ??? moves. If I recall well he included terminations by 50/75 move rule and 3/5 reps repetition rule. Which also delivers the length of the longest possible chess game which is below 10,000. Forgot his name.

Oh perhaps I misunderstood your question. "possibilites"=possible positions or "possibilities"= possible moves?

That's one I haven't seen before though the idea behind it is familiar. You need not provide the coordinates as - by chess.com habit - the side that starts plays bottom-to-top. It's different from composition standards where white always plays from the bottom up.

BTW, P.A. is the funniest movie I deny having seen. Part I that is.

Ok, maybe I shouldn't have done this because if even Master is not seeing this than others, well...

The number has obviously something to do with @Newfreckle's birthday cake. If you guys click on the min diagram that will take you there. This thing is a kind of birthday's cadeau.

You guys try it by doing it with your engine. Just figure out how many possible moves there are for only 1 move for both sides.

Yes. Oh the first time I saw the movie was in 1986. I had never seen anything so funny in my life. Oh... time... I was younger than @Newfreckle at that time.

PS. By the way Master has already cracked it. So let's see if you are going to catch up with him.

As Ozzy is singing "the table has turned" and that is the ultimate sin, or more likely an ultimate joke.

400

Ok. I better tell you the answer:

"There are 16 combinations to the riddle at hand. Because if you look closely at the main diagram you will see that only pieces that can move on both sides are the knights. That is 4x4=16. By the way all pawns are ready to promote on their next respective move!

Now, if the answer was 400 it would not be worthy of "Fun with chess" because... where is the fun in that?

So happy birthday to the one that is 16 years old!"

Disregard this remark. My bad.

400.

Yes ,I know, even Boobie Fisher loved that stuff.