1- try to run the last version of python, there is speed improvement in 3.10 and 3.11

     >>> import sys; sys.version
     '3.10.4 (main, Dec  2 2022, 17:52:13) [Clang 14.0.0 (clang-1400.0.29.202)]'

     51.94417405128479
     37.79175686836243
     100.8145821094513

2- global variable lookup is costly in python, putting the whole thing in a main() function halves the running time

     22.97948908805847
     22.47922682762146
     59.1025867462158

link to my code:

https://gist.github.com/xcombelle/8ac84ccb276f8996ed1a458ee2...