Maximum value of chess pieces
Find the maximum sum of the value of chess pieces (excluding both kings) that can be on a chess board.
Assumptions:
The game starts in standard starting position on an board.
White and black are both attempting to maximize this value.
The game can end at any time and does not require a checkmate.
Kings are to be excluded, queens are worth points each, rooks are worth points each, bishops are worth points each, knights are worth points each, and pawns are worth point each.
Bonus: What is the minimum number of moves to achieve this maximum value?
The answer is 182.
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
1 solution
The way in which you increase the total value is by queening your pawns. As such, we should treat the pawns as having a value of 9, but only if we can get them across the board. Unless they’re attacking, pawns can only move in their row, so they will pair off and be stuck. So, we have to sacrifice a few pieces.
My original idea was to make use of en passent, but this wastes pawns. Since we’re treating pawns as high value pieces, we should sacrifice the low value knights amd bishops to move the pawns around. If we use this technique to move all white’s pawns to odd rows, and black’s to evens, then all sixteen can queen. We are left with 18 9-point queens, 4 5-point rooks, and the kings, whose value we ignore, for a total value of 182.