Here are some details about GoAhead:

• It's a simple one-pass program. It usually doesn't calculate variations at all.
• It uses a fixed order:
  1. connections
  2. generation of moves of each group
  3. evaluation of the strength of the groups (depends on the safety, size of surrounded territory, and on the number of generated moves) including life & death (see below)
  4. evaluate overall score of the current position (according to territory, potential areas, weaknesses of groups
  5. adjust playing style to current position (e.g. invade, if behind; reduce, if opponent builds large mojos etc.)
  6. detection and evaluation of cutting points
  7. decision where to play (answer last move or play elsewhere?)
  8. joseki moves (database)
  9. evaluation of the generated moves (depends on the strengths of the groups)
  10. endgame moves (see below)
  11. local answers (nobi, hane)
  12. shape moves (pattern recognition)
  13. calculate overall values of suggested moves
  14. play best move
• Different parts of the program generate different types of moves (joseki, extensions, checking moves, mojo moves, escaping, hunting, sliding, connecting, separating, blocking, invasions). Each type of moves is evaluated with a different program according to the current situation on the board.
• Variations are only calculated for
  1. ladders etc. (two liberty problems)
  2. life & death: Here, I try to localize the current problem, and calculate rather deep variations, until one can decide, whether the group is dead or alive.
  3. endgame moves: also localize the problem, calculate variations, until distribution of territory is clear.
  Classical technics (alpha-beta, window technics) are used for tree-search.

Unfortunately, the program runs on an Atari computer and is rather slow (beginning: 20''/move, endgame: 80''/move).