One Million Moves on RHP

One Million Moves on RHP

The Planet Greenpawn

One Million Moves on RHP

“We knocked the bugger off!”

Those were the words of Edmund Hillary after he conquered Mount Everest in 1953.
He got a Knighted and his mate Tenzin Norgay got not Knighted.
(Awful grammar I know but it's done on purpose to show the unfairness of it.)

Why did they do it? ‘Because it (the bugger) was there’. is the common reply.

We all have own buggers to ‘knock off’.
Me I want to learn the chords of ‘Get Back’ by The Beatles.
My wife wants to walk past a beauty parlour without being told to please cross the road.
Others on RHP want to crack the grade of 1600/1700/1800 or what ever.

ZorroTheFox User 193938 and Marko Krale User 115856 are in a bugger of a race.
The first one tp play one million moves on Red Hot Pawn.
Currently the situation is this:

ZorroTheFox: 901041
Marko Krale: 914426

A million moves.! Do they still use the moon as a measuring stick?

They did when I was at school.
Things with large numbers were being compared how many times it
would go around the moon.

The numbers of Bibles sold placed end to end go to the moon and back and
halfway back again.
(by now since I left school the Bible sales should have made two trips to the moon .)

The grains of rice in that Indian chess puzzle.
Place 1 grain on a1, two on b1, four on c1, 8 on d1, 16 on e1.

Indian Rice Trick


By the time you get to a8 the grains of rice whip around the moon ten times.
(that is a guess by the way - it may be more.)

The pile of grains of rice would be taller than Mount Everest.
the total is 18,446,744,073,709,551,615.
(did you spot how smartly I linked Mount Everest back into the
blog. I'm a clever bugger....hey two links!!)

So if we get a million pawns 5 cm’s high do we get to the moon?

If we place these million pawns end to end it reaches….50,000 metres. 50 km’s. Pathetic.
We are not going to get to the moon that way.

The moon is what? 384,000 KM’s away.

To reach the moon with a million pawns we are going to need pawns 3.8 metres tall..
(It’s OK I got someone else to do the maths for me.)

I refuse to try and balance 1 million 3.8 metre high pawns
on top of each other at night.
(it has to be at night else you won't be able to see the moon.)

These two merry individuals have played each other more than 300 times.
Nine of these games have ended in checkmate.
3 for Zorro and 6 for Marko.
Zorro has the longest mate, a 105 mover that must have delighted both players because
it went to over a 100 moves.

Marko Krale - ZorroTheFox RHP 2006 (White to play)


Resigns is OK but Marko squeezed in another move and played 105.Kd1, Zorro mated with 105…Rd1

The shortest mate, a miserable 29 mover was also given by Zorro.

ZorroTheFox - Marko Krale RHP 2007 (Black to play)


Again Marko walked into a mate in one. 28…Kf7 29.Qxe6 mate.

One of the Marko mates shows the dangers of playing so many games at once.

Marko Krale - ZorroTheFox RHP 2007



You can follow their progress in Thread 158315

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All of this brings me on nicely to the One Millionth game of RHP.

In February 2005 Thread 20326 the punters were eagerly pontificating
who the millionth game would be between and the countdown began.

And who was it?

Nobody knows because the game was started and then deleted. 🙁

I’ve got game 99,999 for you.

ytrewq (1590) - hypermo2001 (1427) RHP 2002



And I’ve got game 1,000,001 for you.

keepacoldone (1247) - kelv (962) RHP 2005



So time passed, games were played, blunders exchanged and in May 2013
the tenth millionth game was played on RHP. It was another blunder game.

PeterClark (1553) - Eggcatcher (1465) RHP 2013 Game 10000000

It is White to play. This came from a Benko Gambit and White is holding back
the traditional Black counter-play. The Black threat is Nd3 wining the exchange.



The thread accompanying this blog is Thread 158315 which is also the original thread.

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