New Houdini

[S.Taylor]

When will new Houdini be released? 1st Nov, any news?

Houdini will be released in the second week of November. (Robert said that at Tcec Forum)

THAT'S no good! It won't be in time for the s uperfinal, which is beginning between 5th-7th of November!

[Dirt]

Houdini will be released in the second week of November. (Robert said that at Tcec Forum)

THAT'S no good! It won't be in time for the superfinal, which is beginning between 5th-7th of November!

There are some logistics involved in getting out a commercial version but that won't stop TCEC from getting it.

[Laskos]

The most striking peculiarity is that Houdini keeps more Queens on the board till the Win adjudication than Stockfish and Komodo. Average number of Queens at the Win adjudication:

Houdini: 1.06
Stockfish: 0.70
Komodo: 0.68

97.5% or 2 standard deviations that it's not a statistical fluke.

Here above I speculated after 58 games of Houdini in TCEC Rapid, a month ago. It seemed maybe a statistical fluke, but it is not. The result is confirmed by Terence Rattray database of 22,000 games between Houdini 5 and Stockfish dev:
http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=62195

Error margins 95% confidence:

Average won game length:
Houdini 5: 83.3 +/- 0.6
Stockfish: 85.6 +/- 0.5


Average number of Queens at the adjudication of won games:
Houdini 5: 1.02 +/- 0.02
Stockfish: 0.92 +/- 0.02

Average material at the adjudication of won games (1-3-3-5-9):
Houdini 5: 15.5 +/- 0.2
Stockfish: 14.2 +/- 0.2


We already know that Stockfish is more aggressive, keeps more material for win and wins in shorter games than Komodo. But Houdini 5 is even more of all that than Stockfish. Thanks to Terence for the excellent database.

[Laskos]

The most striking peculiarity is that Houdini keeps more Queens on the board till the Win adjudication than Stockfish and Komodo. Average number of Queens at the Win adjudication:

Houdini: 1.06
Stockfish: 0.70
Komodo: 0.68

97.5% or 2 standard deviations that it's not a statistical fluke.

Here above I speculated after 58 games of Houdini in TCEC Rapid, a month ago. It seemed maybe a statistical fluke, but it is not. The result is confirmed by Terence Rattray database of 22,000 games between Houdini 5 and Stockfish dev:
http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=62195

Error margins 95% confidence:

Average won game length:
Houdini 5: 83.3 +/- 0.6
Stockfish: 85.6 +/- 0.5


Average number of Queens at the adjudication of won games:
Houdini 5: 1.02 +/- 0.02
Stockfish: 0.92 +/- 0.02

Average material at the adjudication of won games (1-3-3-5-9):
Houdini 5: 15.5 +/- 0.2
Stockfish: 14.2 +/- 0.2


We already know that Stockfish is more aggressive, keeps more material for win and wins in shorter games than Komodo. But Houdini 5 is even more of all that than Stockfish. Thanks to Terence for the excellent database.

With the same database, castling patterns show Stockfish as playing more similarly to human GM castling patterns than Houdini 5.

GM2600.pgn file, 27202 GM ELO 2600+ games:
O-O: 84.9%
O-O-O: 7.1%
No Cast: 8.0%

Houdini 5:
O-O: 87.5%
O-O-O: 4.1%
No Cast: 8.4%

Stockfish dev:
O-O: 85.7%
O-O-O: 6.0%
No Cast: 8.3%

Stockfish in castling more queenside, in line with human games.

Also: the cute g6 move as White is made by:

Houdini: 9.4% of White games
Stockfish: 11.7% of White games

[Tdunbug]

Interesting analysis Kai Laskos. I am glad the database proved useful for showing tendencies of different engines. Would be cool to know other things like handling of the bishop pair, knight pair, center dominance, space adantages and attacking the king etc!

[Laskos]

Interesting analysis Kai Laskos. I am glad the database proved useful for showing tendencies of different engines. Would be cool to know other things like handling of the bishop pair, knight pair, center dominance, space adantages and attacking the king etc!

Some of these things I am unable to filter out. I am using a text editor with powerful search function and Scid. PGN-Extract and 40H-PGN don't seem to help, or at least I am unable to use them for that. For now two of the more striking differences between Houdini 5 and Stockfish dev I get:

*** Wins with Queens on the board later in the game:

Houdini: 1147/3605 = 31.8%
Stockfish: 1478/5948 = 24.8%

Houdini likes to win with the Queens on the board more.


*** Bishop pair until late in the game:

Houdini: 1195 games
Stockfish: 795 games

Houdini likes the Bishop pair more overall (wins, draws, losses).

[Laskos]

Interesting analysis Kai Laskos. I am glad the database proved useful for showing tendencies of different engines. Would be cool to know other things like handling of the bishop pair, knight pair, center dominance, space adantages and attacking the king etc!

Some of these things I am unable to filter out. I am using a text editor with powerful search function and Scid. PGN-Extract and 40H-PGN don't seem to help, or at least I am unable to use them for that. For now two of the more striking differences between Houdini 5 and Stockfish dev I get:

*** Wins with Queens on the board later in the game:

Houdini: 1147/3605 = 31.8%
Stockfish: 1478/5948 = 24.8%

Houdini likes to win with the Queens on the board more.


*** Bishop pair until late in the game:

Houdini: 1195 games
Stockfish: 795 games

Houdini likes the Bishop pair more overall (wins, draws, losses).

One of the most striking:
*** Rook against minors and pawns later in the game:

Houdini: 292 games
Stockfish: 618 games

Also:
*** Rook pair until late in the game:

Houdini: 3436 games
Stockfish: 3876 games

Stockfish likes the Rook more.

[Laskos]

Interesting analysis Kai Laskos. I am glad the database proved useful for showing tendencies of different engines. Would be cool to know other things like handling of the bishop pair, knight pair, center dominance, space adantages and attacking the king etc!

Some of these things I am unable to filter out. I am using a text editor with powerful search function and Scid. PGN-Extract and 40H-PGN don't seem to help, or at least I am unable to use them for that. For now two of the more striking differences between Houdini 5 and Stockfish dev I get:

*** Wins with Queens on the board later in the game:

Houdini: 1147/3605 = 31.8%
Stockfish: 1478/5948 = 24.8%

Houdini likes to win with the Queens on the board more.


*** Bishop pair until late in the game:

Houdini: 1195 games
Stockfish: 795 games

Houdini likes the Bishop pair more overall (wins, draws, losses).

One of the most striking:
*** Rook against minors and pawns later in the game:

Houdini: 292 games
Stockfish: 618 games

Also:
*** Rook pair until late in the game:

Houdini: 3436 games
Stockfish: 3876 games

Stockfish likes the Rook more.

One more striking difference:

*** Pawn at g6 as White against castled Black Kg8. Often a King attack:

Houdini: 191 games
Stockfish: 498 games

[Nordlandia]

How does Houdini 5.01 Pro pluss 6-Men Nalimov assess this position ->

One individual active on this forum seem to have 6-men nalimov installed on SSD (can't remember username) Please share this puzzle if you know.

[d]6K1/4p3/3b4/8/b6P/2Bk4/8/2R5 b - - 0 1