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==1999==
Francesca is an amateur program. It follows the trends of most chess programs since the 1970's and uses many of the state-of-the-art techniques: [[Aspiration Windows|aspiration]] alpha-beta, null moves, other forward pruning mechanisms, a large [[Transposition Table|transposition table]], an [[Evaluation Hash Table|evaluation hash table]], large [[Opening Book|opening book]] etc.
Prior to 1998, Francesca relied mainly on [[Piece-Square Tables|piece-square values]] and a fast search to play good chess. In 1998, the evalution code was completely rewritten, and all evaluation is now done in the [[Leaf Node|leaves]] of the [[Search Tree|search tree]]. This has produced stronger play; although 1999 Francesca is slower in nodes per second than 1997 Francesca, she plays a more interesting and challenging game.
