Why is Houdini 4 so clueless?

[IGarcia]

Should be given something. According to the original poster, the match took place on PlayChess or equivalent. So the machines are certainly not the same. So different geographical location and therefore differente connection. And many other unknown hardware/software optimizations.

[Event "Rated game, 5 min"]
[Site "Engine Room"]
[Date "2014.03.03"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Stockfish 160214 64"]
[Black "Houdini 4 Pro x64"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B92"]
[WhiteElo "2560"]
[BlackElo "2582"]
[Annotator "0.12;0.00"]
[PlyCount "152"]
[EventDate "2014.03.03"]
[TimeControl "300"]

No.. Stockfish today is better than H4. Simple as that.

H4 its 1st in rating lists because wins more points to other weak engines, thanks to contempt, and gets a better general result.

The current way to develop Stockfish is amazing and I wonder what would happen if the same system is applied to other engines like Komodo. If Don wanted to immortalize his engine, the correct way was to open source and give it to the community to make improvements.

Can any imagine a competence in future with a couple of engines developed as Stockfish now? Say a match between SF vs open-Komodo? ( or open Houdini? )


Regards,
Ignacio.

PS: any engine can be embraced by community, not only Komodo or Houdini. There are many open engines to start with.

[mwyoung]

You are the one claiming H4 makes mistakes

You on crack or something ? Its the OP who was criticizing H4. In my opinion, Houdini 4 will not lose a game in the manner described by the OP, given good hardware, reasonable amount of time and EGTBs.
Is what I'm saying too complicated to understand ?

"Everyone havin' fun bashing H4" You said everyone not OP.

And yes it is complicated to understand.

Are you saying the OP when using Houdini 4 needs to make sure to use faster hardware, use EGTB, and more time. Then the OP that is using Stockfish to keep Houdini 4 from losing in this manner?

I am confused, at what point and speed does Houdini 4 stop losing games to Stockfish?

And how much of a speed advantage does Houdini 4 need over Stockfish?

And what is the fastest time control that Houdini 4 can play at to avoid making mistakes against Stockfish?

[Adam Hair]

Should be given something. According to the original poster, the match took place on PlayChess or equivalent. So the machines are certainly not the same. So different geographical location and therefore differente connection. And many other unknown hardware/software optimizations.

[Event "Rated game, 5 min"]
[Site "Engine Room"]
[Date "2014.03.03"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Stockfish 160214 64"]
[Black "Houdini 4 Pro x64"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B92"]
[WhiteElo "2560"]
[BlackElo "2582"]
[Annotator "0.12;0.00"]
[PlyCount "152"]
[EventDate "2014.03.03"]
[TimeControl "300"]

No.. Stockfish today is better than H4. Simple as that.

H4 its 1st in rating lists because wins more points to other weak engines, thanks to contempt, and gets a better general result.

The current way to develop Stockfish is amazing and I wonder what would happen if the same system is applied to other engines like Komodo. If Don wanted to immortalize his engine, the correct way was to open source and give it to the community to make improvements.

Can any imagine a competence in future with a couple of engines developed as Stockfish now? Say a match between SF vs open-Komodo? ( or open Houdini? )


Regards,
Ignacio.

PS: any engine can be embraced by community, not only Komodo or Houdini. There are many open engines to start with.

Don was not the sole person working on Komodo. Larry also was and is an author of Komodo.

[IGarcia]

Should be given something. According to the original poster, the match took place on PlayChess or equivalent. So the machines are certainly not the same. So different geographical location and therefore differente connection. And many other unknown hardware/software optimizations.

[Event "Rated game, 5 min"]
[Site "Engine Room"]
[Date "2014.03.03"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Stockfish 160214 64"]
[Black "Houdini 4 Pro x64"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B92"]
[WhiteElo "2560"]
[BlackElo "2582"]
[Annotator "0.12;0.00"]
[PlyCount "152"]
[EventDate "2014.03.03"]
[TimeControl "300"]

No.. Stockfish today is better than H4. Simple as that.

H4 its 1st in rating lists because wins more points to other weak engines, thanks to contempt, and gets a better general result.

The current way to develop Stockfish is amazing and I wonder what would happen if the same system is applied to other engines like Komodo. If Don wanted to immortalize his engine, the correct way was to open source and give it to the community to make improvements.

Can any imagine a competence in future with a couple of engines developed as Stockfish now? Say a match between SF vs open-Komodo? ( or open Houdini? )


Regards,
Ignacio.

PS: any engine can be embraced by community, not only Komodo or Houdini. There are many open engines to start with.

Don was not the sole person working on Komodo. Larry also was and is an author of Komodo.

Yes you are right, still I doubt Larry will oppose to Don if hes intention was to open engine.

As we all can see, Stockfish will engulf komodo too.

[sicilianquake87]

Open source or not, I think that the idea to release a free single core version of Komodo was very generous of them!

[sicilianquake87]

In my opinion, Houdini 4 will not lose a game in the manner described by the OP, given good hardware, reasonable amount of time and EGTBs.
Is what I'm saying too complicated to understand ?

What's difficult to understand is why you consider that a reasonable statement to make. Given infinite time any engine plays perfect chess.

Was Houdini playing on inferior hardware compared to Stockfish? No. Was it playing at time-odds? No. Was stockfish using EGTBs while Houdini wasn't? No. Was it at a disadvantage from Stockfish? No.
In this particular game (and perhaps under these particular conditions) Stockfish played better than Houdini. Houdini is very strong, but clearly not unbeatable - it misevaluates sometimes and it does miss tactics. That should be obvious anyway, since it would occasionally lose games (to Stockfish, for instance). If that happens more now this is because Stockfish improved and is better tuned than it used to be.

Also fair to remember: Houdini 4 does not improve, it is static. The "current" version of Stockfish has seen an enormous improvement since the version of Stockfish that was current when Houdini 4 came out. Comparing current Stockfish to Houdini 4 is comparing apples and oranges; you should compare with the current development version of Houdini, which no-one has access to (and which may not have improved as much as Stockfish since it's hard to beat the computer resources available to the development of Stockfish, but that's impossible to say for sure).

TCET will give us a verdict soon.

[mwyoung]

In my opinion, Houdini 4 will not lose a game in the manner described by the OP, given good hardware, reasonable amount of time and EGTBs.
Is what I'm saying too complicated to understand ?

What's difficult to understand is why you consider that a reasonable statement to make. Given infinite time any engine plays perfect chess.

Was Houdini playing on inferior hardware compared to Stockfish? No. Was it playing at time-odds? No. Was stockfish using EGTBs while Houdini wasn't? No. Was it at a disadvantage from Stockfish? No.
In this particular game (and perhaps under these particular conditions) Stockfish played better than Houdini. Houdini is very strong, but clearly not unbeatable - it misevaluates sometimes and it does miss tactics. That should be obvious anyway, since it would occasionally lose games (to Stockfish, for instance). If that happens more now this is because Stockfish improved and is better tuned than it used to be.

Also fair to remember: Houdini 4 does not improve, it is static. The "current" version of Stockfish has seen an enormous improvement since the version of Stockfish that was current when Houdini 4 came out. Comparing current Stockfish to Houdini 4 is comparing apples and oranges; you should compare with the current development version of Houdini, which no-one has access to (and which may not have improved as much as Stockfish since it's hard to beat the computer resources available to the development of Stockfish, but that's impossible to say for sure).

TCET will give us a verdict soon.

That is unfair to Houdini's development version to call TCEC a verdict. TCEC is not designed for that reason. To give a reliable rating, or verdict on any program. Houdini development version could be the strongest engine but still lose TCEC.

[sicilianquake87]

In my opinion, Houdini 4 will not lose a game in the manner described by the OP, given good hardware, reasonable amount of time and EGTBs.
Is what I'm saying too complicated to understand ?

What's difficult to understand is why you consider that a reasonable statement to make. Given infinite time any engine plays perfect chess.

Was Houdini playing on inferior hardware compared to Stockfish? No. Was it playing at time-odds? No. Was stockfish using EGTBs while Houdini wasn't? No. Was it at a disadvantage from Stockfish? No.
In this particular game (and perhaps under these particular conditions) Stockfish played better than Houdini. Houdini is very strong, but clearly not unbeatable - it misevaluates sometimes and it does miss tactics. That should be obvious anyway, since it would occasionally lose games (to Stockfish, for instance). If that happens more now this is because Stockfish improved and is better tuned than it used to be.

Also fair to remember: Houdini 4 does not improve, it is static. The "current" version of Stockfish has seen an enormous improvement since the version of Stockfish that was current when Houdini 4 came out. Comparing current Stockfish to Houdini 4 is comparing apples and oranges; you should compare with the current development version of Houdini, which no-one has access to (and which may not have improved as much as Stockfish since it's hard to beat the computer resources available to the development of Stockfish, but that's impossible to say for sure).

TCET will give us a verdict soon.

That is unfair to Houdini's development version to call TCEC a verdict. TCEC is not designed for that reason. To give a reliable rating, or verdict on any program. Houdini development version could be the strongest engine but still lose TCEC.

Let me guess: maybe this is the reason I wrote a verdict and not the verdict?

[mwyoung]

In my opinion, Houdini 4 will not lose a game in the manner described by the OP, given good hardware, reasonable amount of time and EGTBs.
Is what I'm saying too complicated to understand ?

What's difficult to understand is why you consider that a reasonable statement to make. Given infinite time any engine plays perfect chess.

Was Houdini playing on inferior hardware compared to Stockfish? No. Was it playing at time-odds? No. Was stockfish using EGTBs while Houdini wasn't? No. Was it at a disadvantage from Stockfish? No.
In this particular game (and perhaps under these particular conditions) Stockfish played better than Houdini. Houdini is very strong, but clearly not unbeatable - it misevaluates sometimes and it does miss tactics. That should be obvious anyway, since it would occasionally lose games (to Stockfish, for instance). If that happens more now this is because Stockfish improved and is better tuned than it used to be.

Also fair to remember: Houdini 4 does not improve, it is static. The "current" version of Stockfish has seen an enormous improvement since the version of Stockfish that was current when Houdini 4 came out. Comparing current Stockfish to Houdini 4 is comparing apples and oranges; you should compare with the current development version of Houdini, which no-one has access to (and which may not have improved as much as Stockfish since it's hard to beat the computer resources available to the development of Stockfish, but that's impossible to say for sure).

TCET will give us a verdict soon.

That is unfair to Houdini's development version to call TCEC a verdict. TCEC is not designed for that reason. To give a reliable rating, or verdict on any program. Houdini development version could be the strongest engine but still lose TCEC.

Let me guess: maybe this is the reason I wrote a verdict and not the verdict?

A verdict is the formal finding of fact. The verdict is the outcome of such fact. And yet with all your subtleties, you are not wise.

[IGarcia]

Open source or not, I think that the idea to release a free single core version of Komodo was very generous of them!

Yes, was very good. Still the point is not understood:

If open - FREE - engines will crush you, why not donating the "code" when still there is a reason to invest in it?

See, if one strong (not open source) decides to go open source when is not more in top list will be pointless because will be little or none interest in it.

I understand the fact some programmers sells their engines for living, as was for Don, but a honest question has to be asked: How you will earn money if Stockfish -FREE- crushes your engine every time?

As I see things, the commercial future on chess engines is no viable. The "Evolution" on design introduced by Stockfish to chess engine development will dominate.

And its now a good time to introduce a mutation (open code), so a programmer can see his baby evolving giving the "DNA". Most others will extinguish.

I will save this post and read it again in several years. Then I will google for houdini, komodo and stockfish, only to see how wrong I am.

Regards.