how many different ways can you start the opening of a chess game?

Question

an opening in a chess game, at least it's the definition I learned, consists of the first 4 moves. and here in this case, a move is defined as each player moving a peice once.
Ok, now do you realize that the number of possible ways to open up a chess game is a very large number. Normally, I would be able to figure this out myself, but I'm getting confused because you can move more than just pawns and the different abilities of the peices is messing up my formula majorly. I don't know how to fix it.

Answer 1

i used to know this, it's in the billions...

Answer 2

Well, 20 is it, unless you want to add one more possibility. You could say simply, "I concede." That's 21!

But,. I'm not sure this is what you wanted. Perhaps you are just posing an interesting question, or maybe you want to learn some basic openings that will take the first 7 moves or so. You typically will move the two pawns one or two spaces (in front of the king and queen), one or two knights, one or two bishops, and maybe castle. Most openings are variations of how you make these first six or seven moves, and how your opponent responds. Good luck!

Answer 3

I do not know, but I know Sahovski Informant did a statistic study from their all volumes (1966 till 2001 (35 years from Informator)) and the most played first move was

1.e4.
1.d4 was so close,
1.c4 was very much played together 1.Nf3 and all of them ranged by 90% of all first moves played.
See, there is no another opening with any different move from these ones and all different moves would be catalogued as "A00" under ECO code.

www.sahovski.com

Answer 4

20 ways >>> each pond can move one or 2 spaces making 16 ways then add 4 ways of the knights which makes 20 ways.

Answer 5

20.

Answer 6

There is only one way: e4! All other alternatives must loose by best play from both players.

;)