Houdini 6 has been released

[Houdini]

The issue with what you are doing is that you release one version every year approximately which is pointless. Three months down the road Houdini 6 will be old news like every other compile that gets created. Stockfish 8 is already dead in the grass. If you went to a subscription -based model then it would give people, like myself, more incentive to invest money into your product. Annual releases just do not mean much.

Secondly, until Stockfish is dethroned it's still number one. You're fighting a community with vast resources. Development might be slow right now, but the other way will surely come. The community will always win. It's not an engine reliant on one person or two fellows - but a group of individuals dedicated to the cause of creating the world's strongest engine.

So forget about IPON. Let's wait and see what Houdini can do face to face versus the development version, and if Houdart can continue with his surge.

I respect your opinion, but for many users one version per year is perfectly adequate. Not everyone wants to be continuously installing development builds that add 1.7 Elo compared to last week's version.

Secondly, all the better! Houdini and Stockfish are no enemies; Houdini development is a drive for SF development, and vice versa.

Why should we forget about IPON? It's usually a very reliable data point in a sea of uncertainty. You can easily estimate where the current SF dev version would be in the list, probably around 25 points better than SF 8.

[Ras]

Have you made any improvements to the Security apart from web-based Activation ?

Thanks for pointing that out so that I don't have to think about it. This kind of customer hostile copy protection works as buying protection for me.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

This means Stockfish dev would be ~ 66 Elo stronger than Stockfish 8...

Surely you follow the SF development and probably know that the current SF dev is at best 30 Elo better than SF 8 (see the regression tests at the SF development site).

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

the strongest engine that money can buy

I believe Robert chose his words very carefully...

The words were chosen carefully not to be repetitive.
The web page also says two lines above the quote you made "Houdini 6: The strongest engine in the world", which I believe Houdini 6 is (and IPON agrees with me).

The issue with what you are doing is that you release one version every year approximately which is pointless. Three months down the road Houdini 6 will be old news like every other compile that gets created. Stockfish 8 is already dead in the grass. If you went to a subscription -based model then it would give people, like myself, more incentive to invest money into your product. Annual releases just do not mean much.

Secondly, until Stockfish is dethroned it's still number one. You're fighting a community with vast resources. Development might be slow right now, but the other way will surely come. The community will always win. It's not an engine reliant on one person or two fellows - but a group of individuals dedicated to the cause of creating the world's strongest engine.

So forget about IPON. Let's wait and see what Houdini can do face to face versus the development version, and if Houdart can continue with his surge.

certainly an individual can beat the Framework, and by much(+50-100 elo and more), provided that:

- he knows his code perfectly, which every top programmer should do
- is very good in his occupation and chess
- has creative ideas, which is never to be dismissed

Problem is, if Robert has quite done that with this version of his, and my answer is no, as he is not anywhere near even +50 elo to SF.

He did that vs Rybka though.

Of course, there are different ways to improve an engine. A single crafty programmer could do that even by only finding a very performing way of tuning the engine's parameters efficiently: for example, by running 10 different instances(with different values) of a test, whereas SF would run only 2 or 3, or by attempting simultaneous tuning of a larger scale of terms, running 100-500 instances of those, whereas SF would not attempt that at all.

So that, everything is possible, problem is, how to achieve it.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

They might be equal in direct encounter, not against others opponent. Also, the first test are with brainfish or faster compile of Stockfish at blitz time control. Nothing yet like 10 minutes or more, wich would probably decrease a little the advantage of a fast compile.

SF excels at 10 minutes/fast rapid, and its performance considerably drops off/is nothing special at blitz, so the reality will be contrary to what you expect.

Only pain-staking further tests could tell us who is actually better.

Contempt has its say too.

For the time being, I am divided, have to look at some Houdini games, my intuition tells me SF will be a bit better in direct encounters on average at different time controls, but I might easily be wrong.

[shrapnel]

The issue with what you are doing is that you release one version every year approximately which is pointless. Three months down the road Houdini 6 will be old news like every other compile that gets created. Stockfish 8 is already dead in the grass. If you went to a subscription -based model then it would give people, like myself, more incentive to invest money into your product. Annual releases just do not mean much.

So forget about IPON. Let's wait and see what Houdini can do face to face versus the development version, and if Houdart can continue with his surge.

+ 100.
My thoughts EXACTLY !
The once a year update of Houdini does really make it pointless for Gamers like us to invest in it.
All the Song and Dance over the last few pages about how Houdini 6 is beating Stockfish 8 struck me too as slightly ridiculous. You and I are both Gamers and know the simple truth that even a month-old Engine at the highest Competitive levels simply doesn't cut it, let alone the practically ancient Stockfish 8.
Of course the Testers here may have a different view-point which we should respect.
If Houdini 6 can beat latest SDV by 30-50 ELO....then we're Talking !
Rest is all hogwash and elaborate smoke-screen or sales pitch.
"Caveat emptor"- Let the Buyer Beware.

[Kurt Meyer]

The issue with what you are doing is that you release one version every year approximately which is pointless. Three months down the road Houdini 6 will be old news like every other compile that gets created. Stockfish 8 is already dead in the grass. If you went to a subscription -based model then it would give people, like myself, more incentive to invest money into your product. Annual releases just do not mean much.

So forget about IPON. Let's wait and see what Houdini can do face to face versus the development version, and if Houdart can continue with his surge.

+ 100.
My thoughts EXACTLY !
The once a year update of Houdini does really make it pointless for Gamers like us to invest in it.
All the Song and Dance over the last few pages about how Houdini 6 is beating Stockfish 8 struck me too as slightly ridiculous. You and I are both Gamers and know the simple truth that even a month-old Engine at the highest Competitive levels simply doesn't cut it, let alone the practically ancient Stockfish 8.
Of course the Testers here may have a different view-point which we should respect.
If Houdini 6 can beat latest SDV by 30-50 ELO....then we're Talking !
Rest is all hogwash and elaborate smoke-screen or sales pitch.
"Caveat emptor"- Let the Buyer Beware.

From the moment you ignore the current results of Houdini, or you are blind or just stupid.

All this sh*t talking about investment...are you investing in what? Stop this bullsh*t

You sound like a childish Komodo fanboy... right, it's really great keep releasing half a dozen of versions with 1-5 elo increase each time, with the same price of Houdini.

Are you aware that Komodo could "barely" beat Houdini 5 just with the month and a half old 11.2 version? Nice investment!! Congrats.

[Nordlandia]

Question for Houdart

Found in manual:

The objectively highest level of play is achieved without contempt, i.e. Contempt value 0.

1 - do you urge usage of zero rather than default value when facing SF Dev. Maybe default contempt value is adequate when facing Komodo 11.2.2

2 - Is it wise to allocate one core out of eight for tactical mode during analysis, i.e 7 in normal mode and remaining allocated for tactical mode.

[shrapnel]

From the moment you ignore the current results of Houdini, or you are blind or just stupid.

All this sh*t talking about investment...are you investing in what? Stop this bullsh*t

You sound like a childish Komodo fanboy... right, it's really great keep releasing half a dozen of versions with 1-5 elo increase each time, with the same price of Houdini.

Are you aware that Komodo could "barely" beat Houdini 5 just with the month and a half old 11.2 version? Nice investment!! Congrats.

You haven't even bothered to read Adam's or my Post properly.
I suggest you are the blind and stupid fellow.

[Lion]

I dont agree with this.

While I also like more regular release, one cannot release every week a new engine and ask money for it.

Houdini 6 seems a great improvement over Houdini 5 and the job is IMHO very well done.
If it took 1 Year to gain about 50 ELO, then it is what it is and IMHO 50 ELO should be the margin improvement when one sells a new engine.
So RH did what he had to do.

It is actually probably one of the strongest chess engine with ASMFish.
And it it probably about the 30 ELO you mention over the latest SF Dev.

Once again, thanks for the great Houdini 6 release !

[Hurnavich]

Hi,

I like the way the tactical mode is implemented now ie to use allocated threads.
All or some very nice feature ,I have installed on engine with 50% cores to tactical and 50% to normal run this engine on a position send to IDEA project and use IA in aquarium if any thing looks interesting i then load the normal all cores Houdini see if anything different then if so load a full all cores Tactical to see if it was a tactical solution, then send to IDEA again later run IDEA with Komodo 11.2.2 check any interesting results with SF development and then enter into my own tuned book for Playchess.com it's added a new feature thanks Robert.