dik writes

I can confirm Mike's results on phase 1.

great!

                                          Here follows my table which
also contains the number of local maxima (which you will not find in
"backward" steps):

this is true. i decided i was more interested in performance than
in knowing about local maxima.

I will try to verify phase 2 later next week.

let me offer a suggestion here. since i divided the corner configurations
by symmetry, it might be nicer if you divide the U-D edge configurations
by symmetry. (the numbers involved are the same.)

it's always nice to confirm a calculation like this using a different method.
although what i'm suggesting isn't much of a change.

mike