I want to know what is the maximum number of legal move choices from any board position, in the game of checkers, assuming official rules.
I’m creating a program that plays checkers, and for performance reasons, I need to know in advance the largest number of legal moves. I expect it to be quite low, like under 50, but just making a guess is not an option for me.
I searched for this, but couldn’t find an answer. Maybe I missed something.
Edit:
Thinking for a moment, I think (one of) the largest theoretical number(s) of legal moves might be where all 12 pieces are kings, like in the position W:WK5,K6,K7,K8,K13,K14,K15,K16,K21,K22,K23,K24:BK30, which has 42 legal moves. That position is not valid and is not possible to occur. I’m more interested though in the largest possible moves from a valid checkers position. An upper bound might be fine.