Why it matters

Bitboards enable fast move gen. Foundation for high-perf chess.

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The architecture

One bitboard per piece type + color.

Attacks via bitwise ops.

Magic bitboards for sliding pieces.

Bitboard chess representationPiece bitboards12 * 64-bit intsMove genbitwise opsMagic bitboardssliding piecesStockfish + Leela + all top engines use bitboards; magic bitboards for rooks/bishops
Bitboards.
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How it works end to end

Attack lookup tables.

Magic bitboards: hash-based sliding piece attacks.

Popcount for material.

Bitscan for iterating.