I know there’s different depths but I don’t know what any of it means.
In: 0
Chess engines usually aren’t “calculating” every possible position all the time; we simply don’t have enough computing power for that.
Luckily, most chess games have little to no uniqueness, ie, this exact move sequence has happened before, sometimes many times before. The computer doesn’t really need to do any calculation, it can simply use what worked in the past. Only when the board gets unique does it need to start calculating moves with depth.
This is why chess engines playing each rarely get to determine their own opening, and a human actually chooses the first 2 or 3 moves of a chess match; it’s the only way to ensure the computers don’t choose the exact same move sequence every single game.
Latest Answers