When I play Chinook the return moves are instantaneous. This is all second hand knowlege but I understand that when you play against Nemesis as long a you make book moves it is very quick. If you go off book the program evaluates your moves and gives the operator a choice of replies and assigns each one a value which takes a bit longer. You can put the Nemesis on "deep study" in which it can take a lot of time or accept a move which is the result of a quick study. I have no doubt Ed's program is more state of the art and high tech. I believe he has said that the operator does make a differance, everything else being equal.