+// Looks up the current position in the transposition
+// table. It returns true and a pointer to the TTEntry if the position is found.
+// Otherwise, it returns false and a pointer to an empty or least valuable TTEntry
+// to be replaced later. The replace value of an entry is calculated as its depth
+// minus 8 times its relative age. TTEntry t1 is considered more valuable than
+// TTEntry t2 if its replace value is greater than that of t2.
+TTEntry* TranspositionTable::probe(const Key key, bool& found) const {
+
+ TTEntry* const tte = first_entry(key);
+ const uint16_t key16 = uint16_t(key); // Use the low 16 bits as key inside the cluster
+
+ for (int i = 0; i < ClusterSize; ++i)
+ if (tte[i].key16 == key16 || !tte[i].depth8)
+ {
+ tte[i].genBound8 =
+ uint8_t(generation8 | (tte[i].genBound8 & (GENERATION_DELTA - 1))); // Refresh
+
+ return found = bool(tte[i].depth8), &tte[i];
+ }
+
+ // Find an entry to be replaced according to the replacement strategy
+ TTEntry* replace = tte;
+ for (int i = 1; i < ClusterSize; ++i)
+ // Due to our packed storage format for generation and its cyclic
+ // nature we add GENERATION_CYCLE (256 is the modulus, plus what
+ // is needed to keep the unrelated lowest n bits from affecting
+ // the result) to calculate the entry age correctly even after
+ // generation8 overflows into the next cycle.
+ if (replace->depth8
+ - ((GENERATION_CYCLE + generation8 - replace->genBound8) & GENERATION_MASK)
+ > tte[i].depth8
+ - ((GENERATION_CYCLE + generation8 - tte[i].genBound8) & GENERATION_MASK))
+ replace = &tte[i];
+
+ return found = false, replace;