What makes Rybka so strong?

[bob]

Not necessarily. Many generate _all_ moves and then first pick out just the captures. You do not need to score non-captures yet as quite often a capture is enough to cause a quick cutoff.

In our case "Many" does not refer to any engine we are talking about in this thread



BTW, I have to admit you are very good at generating "escape" moves

Please read again. We were discussing this as a "general optimization". Which would suggest that it is a good idea for _any_ program. I can give specific quotes if needed. And in general, doing things "up front" is a bad idea in the context of alpha/beta, where delaying something for a bit may well turn in to delaying it forever.

[Dann Corbit]

I think that material imbalance in the evaluation (while not a revolution) was a uniquely Rybka idea.