Explanation sought for MAX function with multiple criteria solution and efficiency

[Woodsip]

The problem that I had was to find the maximum value of a range in one column (column E, Score, in the example) when matching values in 3 other columns (column A, Location, column B, Date, column C, Time). This will give the best score achieved for each event (time) on each day.
A simple example worksheet is attached.
Referring to a previous post I saw the following solution posted by JohnTopley:
"Try
=MAX(IF(condition1)*(condition2)*(condition3), Result))
Entered with Ctrl+Shift+Enter
..."
and this was expanded by José Augusto which gave me:

=MAX(IF(($A$2:$A$13=A5)*($B$2:$B$13=B5)*($C$2:$C$13=C5),$E$2:$E$13))

In looking at the referenced post and others, I also learned about array functions and realised that I had already created this one:

=MAX(IF(($A$2:$A$13=A6)*($B$2:$B$13=B6)*($C$2:$C$13=C6),$E$2:$E$13))

but I hadn't entered it with Ctrl/Shift/Enter!!!

Each solution works in my example worksheet; I’ve used both in column G (Formulae) to demonstrate this.
My problem is, I don’t understand the solution offered in the previous post which uses multiplication of text fields. I suspect it involves the effect of True/False in the ‘calculations' but I'm not sure.
Can anyone explain this for me, please?
I can use my own nested IF formula because I understand it (more). However, my worksheet is quite large, currently well over 200,000 rows and growing by the week, so I would be very interested to know whether one formula would be more efficient that the other.
I intend to copy/paste values to remove the formulae and obviate the performance issue but I need to apply the formula to the voluminous historical data in the first instance so this is still of interest to me.

Looking forward to any comments.