Houdini 6 has been released

[schack]

I sent a note to someone there, so they'll hear about it twice!

FWIW, Robert, I'm writing something about H6 (and K11 and SF8/dev) for the Chessbase site. Should be delivered in a week or so!

[shrapnel]

I ran 4000 1 minute games between Houdini 6 and stockfish 8.
Houdini +655 -602 =2743 for a net +53 out of ~4000 games.

Play Houdini 6 against latest Stockfish Development Version and see what happens.
I've stopped using Houdini 6 in my online games, at least on my Intel System.
Much better results on my Ryzen System.
Also, the Time Management is pretty bad. Changing it to 30 doesn't do much. Even if there aren't many Time Losses, Houdini always seems to be struggling against the Clock.
I'm sure that's affecting the quality of play, as quite often it plays with only a few seconds on the Clock towards the end of the game.
I'm talking of 4'+2", 5'+0" and 12'+1" games.
Default Contempt 2 doesn't do much and surprisingly, Contempt 0 is an unmitigated disaster. I hope Houdini 6 isn't using Contempt 0 in TCEC.
Contempt 3 or 4 seems to work well, but not consistently.

[Geonerd]

Houdini 6 has been released today.

Congratulations on Houdini reaching the TCEC Throw-down Showdown!

[AdminX]

Looking forward to a good match.

[Damir]

Hi Robert

Congrats for qualifying in TCEC super final, and many thanks for 6.03 update.

[shrapnel]

6.03 update

When did THAT come out ? As far as I am aware, 6.02 is the latest.

[Nordlandia]

6.03 update

When did THAT come out ? As far as I am aware, 6.02 is the latest.

6.03 is the latest update.

[shrapnel]

OK. Got it. Thanks.

[shrapnel]

Contempt 0 is an unmitigated disaster. I hope Houdini 6 isn't using Contempt 0 in TCEC.

Well, in retrospect, I was certainly right about that, as Houdini with Default Contempt 2 is leading against Komodo ( at the time of writing this), in the SuperFinal !
Glad Mr Houdart took my advice !

In fact, both the latest Official Houdini and Komodo don't play well with Contempt 0.
I mentioned that Komodo doesn't play well with Contempt 0 in a PM I sent earlier to Mark Lefler, but he disagreed (can't blame him ) as I didn't have enough Games to back my Observations of Online Engine-Engine Matches.
Events in TCEC are proving me right, at least so far.....
Anyway, no matter who wins, both are really EXCELLENT Engines and my Congratulations to both Authors for ousting the BORING Stockfish out of the Super-Final.

[david]

I ran 4000 1 minute games between Houdini 6 and stockfish 8.
Houdini +655 -602 =2743 for a net +53 out of ~4000 games.
Elostat says that this is +4 Elo difference, but the error is +/- 6 Elo.
So i still cannot say it is better than stockfish 8

david

So Houdini 6 vs. Stockfish 8 gave H6 as +4 +/- 6 Elo

For Stockfish 9, the same match settings (1min, 8 threads) gives S9 as +48 +/-12 Elo. That is an increase of 52 Elo.

Games : 1081 (finished)
White Wins : 284 (26.3 %)
Black Wins : 103 ( 9.5 %)
Draws : 694 (64.2 %)

So big improvement for Stockfish- way to go !
david