If you're new to chess you might be wondering what is 'Houdini' and does King Kong play chess?
The first answer is, Houdini is a chess engine. It is one half of what you need to play serious chess on your computer. The engine does all the clever chess processing stuff, and the other part you need to use it is the GUI (Graphical User Interface). That's the bit of the software that shows us the chessboard, how the pieces look and what you can do with your (or anyone else's) chess games. One of the main reasons people use these things is to analyse games.
You can download both, with several different versions each, for free (my favourites linked below).
For a while now I've been using Chess.com's computer to play against. While it's a perfectly good opponent for beginners to intermediate level, it has its drawbacks and doesn't begin to have the features you'll find on downloadable chess software like Houdini. So if you're serious about improving in chess, better look to something a little more sophisticated to help guide you.
While Houdini 4 is only 50 Elo points stronger than its predecessor, the improvements mean H4 DOUBLES your computer's performance. Not only that but H4 comes with Let's Check, the world's largest database with a library of 200 million games (I know, I counted) and this is being added to all the time. This library access means H4 will take seconds to figure out what your computer would take hours to work out by itself (if you let it take that long). With access to playchess.com it also means training classes with Grandmasters Daniel King, Klaus Bischoff, Maurice Ashley, Dr. Karsten Müller and others.
Are your palms sweating yet?
But in all seriousness, for us beginners this is really only going to be something of use to much higher level players. By the time the average beginner (with a rating of Elo 600 or so) gets to Elo 1200 or 1600, something much better will be out by then. The question is, will H4 get us to Elo 1200 or more much faster than anything else to justify you spending your hard earned cash on?
To my mind, no it won't.
Please remember this is a blog for beginners. So for this player, while I'm still working towards my mini goal of getting myself passed the 1000 Elo rating, there really is no need to get this. Why? Because there are slightly weaker versions of Houdini and other chess engines available for free, and I still have a long way to go before I'm anywhere near being able to beat them, let alone challenge them.
In actual fact I was using the free version of Houdini for a while and was quite disappointed with it. Not that I found any weakness in its play, but it was just so SLOW. Also, something rather bizarre is that I found Chess.com's own computer a much stronger opponent...? Weird
Just yesterday I downloaded another chess engine, Komodo 5, and set it to demo play. It played against itself (which is great, no way for me to lose!), watching the speed of the pieces whiz around each other during the endgame reminded me of a swarm of angry bumblebees or something. Very exciting (and no need to change my GUI so the look and features are exactly the same). So I'm happy with that for now. Also the Komodo chess engine is now rated as number one seeing as it beat all other chess engines (including Houdini 4 beta) at the TCEC tournament earlier this year. But more importantly for me even though I have the weaker free version, I just like it's style of play. It uses a different method of analysis to other chess engines.
Komodo 5 chess engine (free version) download yours here http://komodochess.com/
Another top engine is Rybka, but I haven't tried that yet.
And to see anything, you'll need a GUI. A favourite among many users seems to be Arena.
So to sum up, I'm not saying you shouldn't buy H4 if you want it. Owning it means you hold one of the most advanced tools at the pinnacle of the battle between man and machine. It's like watching Ferarri videos on youtube, most of us will never own a Ferrari (or defeat any top chess engine), but it's still fun/inspiring.
H4 saves you a lot of hassle and provides quite a lot of useful stuff all in one place (and quite a bit of stuff you won't find elsewhere). While it is under $100 (US) it's not going to break the bank, all I'm saying is if you really can't spend the money it doesn't mean the end of your chess dreams. There are other free alternatives.
No comments:
Post a Comment