Houdini 4 has been released

[Uri Blass]

Anyone know the price is USD?

Roughly $65 for single, $100 for multicore.

Google hack try this "40 pounds to dollars".

I do not see a price for single core and all the versions are multicore
The cheap version supports up to 6 cores and 4 GB of hash.

6 cores are clearly more than a single core.

[pohl4711]

The price of the new Houdini is reasonable considering the improvements advertised on it's web page....
Dr.D

P.S.I know that I'll be executed by Kim for this comment of mine

Hi Doc.
My guess is Houdini 4 is 70 elo. stronger than 2nd place engine.

Best,
Gerold.

I suppose you are talking about bullet chess and only official releases. Anyway H4 did end up beating h3 by 54 elo (+351 -197 =452) in my thousand game bullet match (30" +.3"), and is currently about 50 elo ahead of h3 at a slower 2' + 1.2" after about a thousand games (I'll actually run 4000 as I have 4 thousand game matches running on two monster computers). Allowing for some dropoff with longer time and when playing foreign opponents, I expect about +40 over h3 in the "new IPON" meaning the 5' + 3" CEGT list, which I think is overall the most meaningful list now considering both quantity of games and relevance of the time limit. This would put h4 about fifty above Komodo 6 or about 30 above our current version at this time limit. If so we're probably already equal with h4 at serious tournament levels but we have some work to do to catch h4 at blitz levels.

Most meaningful is the ratinglist with the highest quantity of games and with the highest number of strong opponents, when a strong engine like Houdini 4 is tested. And that is the LS-ratinglist with all the strong Ippolit-derivatives and Amitis, the Stockfish-derivative.
And the intermediate result after 2150 of 10000 games is only +30 Elo for Houdini 4 (compared with the final result of Houdini 3 in the LS-top10-tournament), although the LS-tests are done with bullet-speed, which is not of high "relevance"...
Final (and meaningful) result on Thursday on the LS-website...

Stefan

[ThatsIt]

[...snip...]
Most meaningful is the ratinglist with the highest quantity of games and with the highest number of strong opponents, when a strong engine like Houdini 4 is tested.
[...snip...]

Yours i guess ?

OmG.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

The price of the new Houdini is reasonable considering the improvements advertised on it's web page....
Dr.D

P.S.I know that I'll be executed by Kim for this comment of mine

Yes Doc it is amazing how all of this has evolved.

1. Free Stockfish
2. Stockfish gets stronger
3. Komodo gets stronger
4. Komodo 6 almost free $30 (sad amount for Dons hard work)
5. Tcec Houdini new version loses, not in finals.
6. Two free programs in final.
7. Komodo author passes
8. Houdini new version loses to Komodo but costs twice as much as Komodo

amazing series of events in a short time in chess program history.
I have not purchased Houdini 4 yet, not sure about it.
I will decide soon.
Doc did you already download H4
kgburcham

Not yet my friend....

I'll purchase it in a couple of days when I have more time....
Dr.D

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

The price of the new Houdini is reasonable considering the improvements advertised on it's web page....
Dr.D

P.S.I know that I'll be executed by Kim for this comment of mine

Hi Doc.
My guess is Houdini 4 is 70 elo. stronger than 2nd place engine.

Best,
Gerold.

Hi Gerold

That would be amazing if it's true at long time controls....
Dr.D

[Yarget]

I bought H3 through Chessbase, it's not possible to buy H4 through Chessbase??

[Modern Times]

Most meaningful is the ratinglist with the highest quantity of games and with the highest number of strong opponents, when a strong engine like Houdini 4 is tested.
Stefan

I agree with this, as long as we understand that Houdini for example performs relatively better at bullet chess compared to some of its rivals.

When people use their engines for analysis, even a 5+3 list is way too short. At a minimum, people would surely analyse a move for 5 minutes or so - that is 5 minutes per move, not for the entire game. And some people would even analyse for several hours. The most "relevant" would be a super long time control with a huge number of games, which we know is impossible. All lists have their place, and need to be interpreted with regards to time control, statistical error margins etc.

[pohl4711]

Most meaningful is the ratinglist with the highest quantity of games and with the highest number of strong opponents, when a strong engine like Houdini 4 is tested.
Stefan

I agree with this, as long as we understand that Houdini for example performs relatively better at bullet chess compared to some of its rivals.

When people use their engines for analysis, even a 5+3 list is way too short. At a minimum, people would surely analyse a move for 5 minutes or so - that is 5 minutes per move, not for the entire game. And some people would even analyse for several hours. The most "relevant" would be a super long time control with a huge number of games, which we know is impossible. All lists have their place, and need to be interpreted with regards to time control, statistical error margins etc.

100%-agree.

Stefan

By the way: Houdini 4 played 2800 of 10000 games in its LS-ratinglist-testrun. Only +27 Elo to Houdini 3 - at the moment. Still 7200 games to play. Stay tuned! Result on Thursday on my LS-website.

[Houdini]

After 500 direct bullet (30" + 0.3") games against H3 I'm showing +48 elo, close enough to the claimed 50, but normally elo gains diminish with increased time limit and also against unrelated engines, so I'll "predict" that the real gain (say on the CEGT 5' +3" list, which is similar to IPON) will be around 30 elo. We'll see.

In my tests at 10"+0.1" and 120"+1.2" against 9 opponents Houdini 4 without table bases is about 45 Elo better than Houdini 3.
The Syzygy 6-men add another 5 to 10 Elo in my tests at 60"+1" time control, which explains the official number of "50 Elo" for the release.

How much this will produce in rating lists is always the big surprise, inasmuch as the time management of Houdini 4 has changed as well I'm not even trying to predict these numbers with a precision better than 20 Elo...

Cheers,
Robert

[Modern Times]

It is fair to say also, most ratings lists would not be using 6-men bases. I don't have enough SSD space for Syzygy 6-men, only 5-men on SSD, so that is what I will use. I have 6-men on hard disk just for analysis purposes.