[un1crom]

you can make the first state such that 1 person starts with all the money.

here's how that looks in a 100 person with 100 bucks game (10,000 money supply)

https://github.com/un1crom/givemoneyaway/blob/master/qqplots...

but no you cannot get back to that initial condition.

but in the real world you most definitely can start that way.

chess is like that too... the initial condition can never be regained.

[ikeboy]

Initial condition can be regained, each side moves a horse then moves it back.

[MereInterest]

While that moves the pieces back to their original position, it does not reset to the original game state. After moving the knights back, it would only require 48 additional moves without a pawn moving before the game ends in stalemate, where it required 50 moves at the start of the game.

[albedoa]

Can you expand on this? Where do those two moves go?

[jumhyn]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule

Because both players have already taken two turns, a player can claim a draw after only 48 moves. If the movement of the knights was repeated 25 times, for instance, then either player could claim a draw. However, this is not possible at the beginning of the game, so simply moving the knights back does not actually restore the game state.

[JadeNB]

> Where do those two moves go?

It's just built into the rules: 50 moves without a capture results in a stalemate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule). I guess you could say that the two moves 'go' into the implicit state counter that keeps track of the number of moves without capture.