Schoening proposed a simple yet efficient randomized algorithm
for solving the k-SAT problem. His analysis showed that for 3-SAT,
finding a satisfying assignment of any satisfiable formula F with
n variables can be achieved in poly(n)(4/3)^n (= poly(n)(1.3333)^n)
expected time, which is optimal up to now.  In this paper, we
improve this expected time bound by using a combination of a
deterministic algorithm for 3-SAT and an improvement of the above
randomized algorithm.  Our new bound for the above task is 
poly(n)(1.3303)^n.