What is stronger than Houdini 3 for what?

[MM]

I don't agree. My contributes were genuine, i tried to publish all interesting material, i posted the links, i told my opinion, i don't have reasons to say something in which i don't believe, i just copied what CEGT and CCRL say and that was pretty complete. I had to extrapolate some parts to make evidence of the difference in ELO, otherwise my reasoning would have been probably ununderstandable for several readers.

You know it, because you cannot have forgotten the congratulation and my enthusiasm for the excellent results of Houdini 3 at chess960, and the advices that i sent you about your engine.

If you explain who is the OP perhaps i will learn a new thing, there's always something to learn, in methods too.

Best Regards

Your contribution is genuine, but methodologically unsound - a genuine contribution is not by definition correct or accurate.

But I guess that there is nothing that I can say that would change your mind, because your next step is always to suggest that I'm dishonest (as you said above: "trying to hide the truth").

Robert

P.S. "OP" = "Original Poster"

OP is me?
Is there a problem with ME?
(I had nothing but congratulations and good wishes for Houdini 3, but i am interested in the nature of the improvements over Houdinis 1.5, 2, etc. [And, is Rybka 4.1 being tucked more under the carpet yet, or not? ]).

(Perhaps 1.5 would beat Rybka 4.1 because of special tuning, whilst Houdini 3 is more honest superiority. e.g. maybe rybka 5 will improve vs Houdini 1.5, but will be unable to improve vs Houdini 3. I don't know)

I guarantee for you good boy.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

It is clear, from TCEC (games which you can see very clearly, in the archives of Chessbomb and elswhere), that Houdini 1.5 is clearly superior to Rybka 4.1, at long time controls.
There is no doubt about it. THAT Houdini is far better than Rybka 4.1 in a match between the two. Endgame or not, anything else or not.

But from all you have said, i don't yet see proof that Houdini 3 is better than Houdini 1.5, or from Houdini 2, or from every other program, and that with just a little tweak from something, something else can clearly dominate Houdini 3.

Is this true, or not?

Or will Houdini survive everything with a few elo points handy?

If none of the rating lists can convince you, what will?

Robert

The rating lists don't always show what is about to errupt. YOU would be the one who knows better.
Doesn't Houdini make some moves stronger than Houdini 3, when playing Rybka 4.1, or which Rybka 4.1 can detect weaknesses in?

And do you say that Maurizio Maglio makes wrong conclusions from rating lists? I would believe what YOU say.

Please correct me if i understood bad. I understood that you basically doubt that Houdini 3 is indeed stronger than Houdini 1.5a when playing at LTC against Rybka 4.1?

Best Regards

Yes. That is the question i wanted to have clarified, and if so, what it means, and why.

(I'm sure no one here sees me, as an emotional judger of programs. With me, it is either results or reasoning or combined).

I understand and i agree but i think you (and me) won't never have an answer.

I suspect too that 1.5a could (could) perform better at LGT against Rybka 4.1 compared to H3 but generally these kins of doubts are seen by the authors like smog in their eyes, i think they don't understand they are questions from chess engine's lovers and they are not complaints or personal attachs.

Best Regards

Because Robertllito is selling the engine right now and such claims will have a negative impact on them.........
Dr.D

[michiguel]

It is clear, from TCEC (games which you can see very clearly, in the archives of Chessbomb and elswhere), that Houdini 1.5 is clearly superior to Rybka 4.1, at long time controls.
There is no doubt about it. THAT Houdini is far better than Rybka 4.1 in a match between the two. Endgame or not, anything else or not.

But from all you have said, i don't yet see proof that Houdini 3 is better than Houdini 1.5, or from Houdini 2, or from every other program, and that with just a little tweak from something, something else can clearly dominate Houdini 3.

Is this true, or not?

Or will Houdini survive everything with a few elo points handy?

If none of the rating lists can convince you, what will?

Robert

The rating lists don't always show what is about to errupt. YOU would be the one who knows better.
Doesn't Houdini make some moves stronger than Houdini 3, when playing Rybka 4.1, or which Rybka 4.1 can detect weaknesses in?

And do you say that Maurizio Maglio makes wrong conclusions from rating lists? I would believe what YOU say.

Please correct me if i understood bad. I understood that you basically doubt that Houdini 3 is indeed stronger than Houdini 1.5a when playing at LTC against Rybka 4.1?

Best Regards

Yes. That is the question i wanted to have clarified, and if so, what it means, and why.

(I'm sure no one here sees me, as an emotional judger of programs. With me, it is either results or reasoning or combined).

I understand and i agree but i think you (and me) won't never have an answer.

I suspect too that 1.5a could (could) perform better at LGT against Rybka 4.1 compared to H3 but generally these kins of doubts are seen by the authors like smog in their eyes, i think they don't understand they are questions from chess engine's lovers and they are not complaints or personal attachs.

Best Regards

Because Robertllito is selling the engine right now and such claims will have a negative impact on them.........
Dr.D

[MODERATION]
To the membership: attacking the character of a another member is a violation of the charter. A third party filed a complaint and a post has been deleted. As a consequence, a couple of posts that followed were dragged with the offending one.

The fact that a (neutral) third party filed a complaint (this is not the first time it happens) indicates that the membership do not like to see a continuous fight in this forum. Let's move on with substantial posts and reduce the noise.

Thanks,
Miguel

[Lavir]

I could post also the recent match of Clemens Keck:

http://www.clemens-keck.de/base.htm

The problem is: you only refer to this test as proof of all you say. Even since that test was made I've seen you posting congectures after congectures upon it and basing all your "theories" upon it. The rest naturally fall in place as you want to see it based on that test.

The lists you quoted as "evidence" of Houdini 3 being worse at LTC, for example, actually demonstrate the contrary of what you imply, because while the rating differences naturally decrease given the more draws it seems to me you didn't look well at the winning ratio of H3 in those tests, because if you did you would have noticed that it doesn't decrease and in some cases it acutally increases.

What does this tell you? If H3 did really scale worse the win ratio would (dramatically) decrease, instead it doesn't and it actually in some cases increases. This is the important factor, not the reduced rating difference that it's natural in those margins given the longer time to ponder.

You seem to notice well what you like to notice, but you fail completely to do so for what doesn't confirm your "theory". There is a testing done by Bram Mourik on the tournaments section of this same forum where you see that in a game with Critter 1.6a, there's 80% probability that H3 scales BETTER the more the time, but I suppose you didn't see it, isn't it?

I've personally played 180 games using all Noomen suites against Komodo using once blitz time controls (3 + 2) and once LTC (60 + 15) and in the testing with the LTC the win ratio of H3 actually increased from 60.2% to 63.6%, since H3 lost much less and actually won more. Wasn't Komodo one of the top scaling engines in your assumptions?

But naturally, also in this case, one can see the thing as one wants: if I wanted to look at the thing the other way around, I could say that H3 performed worse since the rating difference decreased given the more draws; I would just have to be totally blind to the fact that H3 lost 10 less games and won 4 more in comparison; but that's not much of a problem when some things must be as they have to be. As Nietzsche said: "memory says: it happened this; reason reply: it cannot have happened this - in the end, reason wins".

As regards Houdini 3 i think it scales better than 2.0 but i didn't investigate on that, it is an argument in which i'm not interested, but i don't think it is at Rybka level.

That's another myth brought upon by some members of the Rybka forum (who knows why?), that "rybka is the best engine for correspondence play" and all that jazz. The fact however is: when you ask for why, all these people give you are conjectures; I've never seen a single PROOF of this, and all is relied upon the "good name" of those saying it, as if that would mean something. Naturally you can say what you want regarding those levels because to have evidence one way or another would require so much time that all is built upon faith, and as they say "faith can move mountains", isn't it?

When someone will actually post some proof of this, maybe I will take the thing seriously; as for now, I've never seen Rybka perform better than Houdini 3 at ANY TC, so the rest is just talk.

[Lavir]

If this is not enough i invite you to observe sometimes the games, perhaps you will understand that the tactical ability of Houdini loses its strenght more that the time control increases, exactly as it happens in human games.

Oh, yes, please, let's do it.

Let's look for example on the games played by Robert at LTC vs. Komodo 5, Stockfish 2.3.1 and Houdini 2 and let's see where the strategical play of those other engines clearly surpass the one of Houdini 3, want we?

Probably you have looken upon some other games, because there are some positional moves in those games by Houdini 3 that are really masterpieces. There are some manouvers that are everything but tactical shots, didn't you notice them? Didn't you notice that one of the large increases in strength play of Houdini 3 relies just on its ability this time around to manuver pieces on the best squares? It's that tactics?

Oh well...

[mwyoung]

Now that we have tested Houdini 3 to an extent, by now,

Can we get a clearer idea to this question?

Is Houdini 3 the strongest engine in all cases at this point in time?

_I_ got the impression that there is one case that there is a stronger engine, e.g.

Houdini 1.5 vs Rybka 4.1.

Is this indeed stronger than

Houdini 3 vs 4.1?

(in general i refer to equal hardware, plus, longer time controls than blitz).

I have been testing Houdini 3 at long time controls. 40 moves in 2.5 hours, 16 move 1 hour.

Against the top programs, Rybka, Critter, Stockfish, Houdini 2.

No need to argue this point with incomplete data, as I have read in this thread.

Give us tester time to produce the data that will answer the question.

You can follow the my test at:

https://www.youtube.com/user/ChessQuizT ... ature=mhee

As of today I can tell you Houdini 3 seem very strong at long time controls. It has played 17 games against the top programs and has not lost a game yet. While winning 4 games.

[S.Taylor]

The way it looks, from Houdini 3 vs Rybka cluster, now, well into game 2, it seems like Houdini 3 is WELL strong vs Rybka (esp that it is at much greater power), and likely more than Houdini 1.5. is, in straight games between it and Rybka.

Earlier tests may well have not shown the truth yet.

But no one said this yet.

[I hope no one wants to argue that Rybka plays worse when it thinks for too long/or too much power].

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

The way it looks, from Houdini 3 vs Rybka cluster, now, well into game 2, it seems like Houdini 3 is WELL strong vs Rybka (esp that it is at much greater power), and likely more than Houdini 1.5. is, in straight games between it and Rybka.

Earlier tests may well have not shown the truth yet.

But no one said this yet.

[I hope no one wants to argue that Rybka plays worse when it thinks for too long/or too much power].

Houdini is not that brilliant as many think Shimon.....

It's just that Rybka is making horrible positional blunders and is getting squashed by Houdini.....

Something is wrong here,I don't know.....

Is it a bad special settings for the match

Is it a bad scaling and not getting the optimal communication with all the 64 processors that Rybka is using

Again,after watching the second game,I am pretty much convinced that Houdini is not that ingenius chess entity as much as there is definitely something wrong with cluster Rybka.......
Dr.D

[Laskos]

The way it looks, from Houdini 3 vs Rybka cluster, now, well into game 2, it seems like Houdini 3 is WELL strong vs Rybka (esp that it is at much greater power), and likely more than Houdini 1.5. is, in straight games between it and Rybka.

Earlier tests may well have not shown the truth yet.

But no one said this yet.

[I hope no one wants to argue that Rybka plays worse when it thinks for too long/or too much power].

Stuart, these games leave a strong impression, but it's still only 2:0. Nevertheless, Houdini can lose the rest of 4 games without losing face, it's against a 4 times stronger hardware, and a score of 4:2 for Cluster is expected.
But:
Please, leave alone these myths as that Houdini 3 scales badly at long TC against Rybka and Komodo and such. This is nonsense. If anything, the indications are that Houdini 3 scales better at long TC.

Kai

[S.Taylor]

The way it looks, from Houdini 3 vs Rybka cluster, now, well into game 2, it seems like Houdini 3 is WELL strong vs Rybka (esp that it is at much greater power), and likely more than Houdini 1.5. is, in straight games between it and Rybka.

Earlier tests may well have not shown the truth yet.

But no one said this yet.

[I hope no one wants to argue that Rybka plays worse when it thinks for too long/or too much power].

Houdini is not that brilliant as many think Shimon.....

It's just that Rybka is making horrible positional blunders and is getting squashed by Houdini.....

Something is wrong here,I don't know.....

Is it a bad special settings for the match

Is it a bad scaling and not getting the optimal communication with all the 64 processors that Rybka is using

Again,after watching the second game,I am pretty much convinced that Houdini is not that ingenius chess entity as much as there is definitely something wrong with cluster Rybka.......
Dr.D

My argument would be, that Houdini 3, as far as i know, is doing better than any other engine on the planet, except, some said, vs Rybka, which was dominated more, ironically, by Houdini 1.5a.

This did not make much sense anyway, and now we see that Houdini 3 IS dominating Rybka just as well, even at cluster x64 vs 16 cores.

So how do you conclude that Houdini is not all that great, if there has never yet been anything better, (in any way)?