[agalunar]

That's not linear probing, though; that's having a 3-way associative cache.

Maybe that's how I should have phrased my comment: a transposition table is a cache, not a hash map,* because entries can be lost (overwritten). Furthermore, insertions may not succeed.

I know you know this; I mentioned it because I didn't want anyone to read Stockfish's source expecting an implementation of a hash map and then get confused.

Stockfish's source is well-written and incidentally didactic, so I'd definitely second the recommendation to read it.

*Or hash table, or dictionary; these are all synonyms, I just prefer "map" myself.