The Chess Board

[MorningLightMountain]

Houdini 3, the best got better!!!

Houdini author Robert Houdart has outdone himself...for those seeking the most powerful chess engine available, Houdini 3 is well worth the price. Robert also gives great technical support, and is a true gentleman in my communications with him.....(and he is an amateur astronomer like myself!!!)

http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm

I bought my copy of the Houdini 3 chess engine, and have been running some tournaments using Arena 3.....here are the partial results so far against some of the other strongest chess engines out there....amazing!!!!

for those who don't wish to buy Houdini, the free version 1.5a is still one of the strongest chess engines available.........it's a no strings attached version, and only bested by Houdini 3 in ALL my tests so far of the engines I have......not too shabby for freeware!!! Note: I don't have Houdini 2, which is stronger than Houdini v1.5a

Time Control: 40 moves in 2 minutes, reoccurring...all engines using 256MB hash, 2 threads (except Komodo 3, which is not multiprocessor capable), Opening Book up to 32 ply, endgame tablebases turned on, pondering off. I also am trying the new Houdini 3 tactical mode, which as expected is not as strong in a short time control match (it's more for analysis purposes)...but it still beats the other non-Houdini engines!!!

386 of 900 games played, tournament still in progress


Program Elo + - Games Score Av.Op. Draws

1 Houdini_3_x64 : 3097 55 53 83 65.1 % 2989 48.2 %
2 Houdini_15a_x64 : 3091 62 61 86 65.1 % 2982 34.9 %
3 Houdini_3_x64-Tactical : 3045 61 61 83 57.2 % 2994 34.9 %
4 Critter_1.6a_64bit : 3019 50 49 84 53.0 % 2998 56.0 %
5 IvanHoe999946f : 3009 54 54 78 48.7 % 3018 51.3 %
6 RobboLito 0.21Q x64 SSE4.2 NLP : 3007 51 51 79 49.4 % 3012 55.7 %
7 Stockfish-231-64-popcnt-ja : 2989 59 59 83 48.2 % 3002 38.6 %
8 Critter_1.4_64bit_sse4 : 2983 53 53 84 47.6 % 3000 50.0 %
9 Stockfish-222-sse42-ja-intel : 2962 51 52 85 44.7 % 2999 51.8 %
10 Komodo3-64-sse : 2962 56 57 77 40.9 % 3026 48.1 %