Math IS fun! at least i remember days when it was/has been, though granted many other 'things' were too! seeing as your into doing it still? am wondering about a problem perhaps you might shed a little light on, regarding chess, so shortly after learning to play (back when math was fun) i remember winning a game that'd been going on for about 20 min's, instead of playing 'two' moves ahead i 'pictured' seven which would, if executed properly end in mate, this took me around 2 min's to process in my head and about another 10 or so to actually play, what kind of equations would that of entailed my now frazzled brain to compute? any idea, thousands? more, i used to tell myself it was millions due to lottery in UK, ie one in 18 million chance of all 6 numbers dropping, though now doubt that, still if i could finally get some sort of ball park figure it'd be great, sad i know but you sound like the type of guy who'd get it.