Total moves possible in Chess?

Has anyone ever figured out how many games/moves are possible in chess?  There should be some easy formula right?  With a cutoff for obvious draw situations like a white king & bishop/knight chasing around a single black king.

Infinite number, even if you forbid making a move, undoing it, and making it again entirely (even for ``a move'' equalling any number of actual moves on the board). It's not terribly hard to see why (in fact, it's a lot like realising why an irrational number can exist in a finite number base), but proving it is rather too much effort right now.
Just try to devise a strategy for counting games, you'll run into it quickly enough.

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Bremermann%20Limit

That article should contain enough information (Sans the total mass of the universe) to figure it out.

>>2
>>3

ehh... you guys sound like a bunch of whiners

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number

\lim_{x -> 5} (x-5)/(x^2-25) =
\lim_{x -> 5} (x-5)/[(x-5)(x+5)] =
\lim_{x -> 5} 1/[(x+5)] = 1/10

Bill Gates takes on world chess champ

Mr Gates lost to Mr Carlsen in 1min 20 sec

Stockholm - Newly crowned Norwegian world chess Norwegian world chess champion Magnus Carlsen took just nine moves to checkmate Microsoft founder Bill Gates in a speed game.

   Challenged to a game in a chat show hosted by well-known Norwegian televsion presenter Fredrik Skavlan, Mr Gates said before the game, which was recorded on Wednesday in London, that the challenge had "a predetermined outcome".

   Mr Gates, 58, had two minutes to make his moves against just 30 seconds for Mr Carlsen.

   He lost to the 23-year-old in around 1 minute 20 seconds.

   "Wow, that was fast," he said to Mr Carlsen

   Asked by Mr Skavlan under what circumstances he felt intellectually inadequate, Mr Gates answered: "When I play chess with him (Carlsen)."

   Mr Carlsen, a grandmaster since he was 13, beat defending champion Viswanathan Anand of India last November to take his first world title.

Reuters