Houdini Is Top Rated Chess Engine

[kingliveson]

It looks like there is a new #1 chess engine in the world. Oh and how long will it take for this thread to be deleted?

[ernest]

Oh and how long will it take for this thread to be deleted?

In the Rybka Forum, everybody knows there is hard censorship...
The thread is not deleted if placed in the sub-Forum "The Edge" (only accessible to those having written at least 500 posts)

[thorstenczub]

its a bolshevist forum. if you say something against the KP, you will be shot in the head soon.

[Gargamel]

Oh and how long will it take for this thread to be deleted?

no long time in fact, you're right, the topic is already deleted !

[yanquis1972]

on 'the edge' they are currently running a couple long TC matches on quads (18/0 on 2.67ghz i7 & 15/10 on a 4ghz i7). i'll update with results when they near halfway mark.

houdini still holding out at over 3000 elo on ingo's site.

[kingliveson]

Here is a true independent chess engine ratings list: SWCR by Frank Quisinsky. All engines are tested including Fruit derivative such as Rybka. He said he would be testing Houdini soon as he has the opportunity.

IPON chess engine ratings list is another independent website to check for top engines. Only issue I have with this list is that raw game data is not provided.

There was a time when CCRL was independent, but now they are Rybka beta testers who receive free copies of the final product; nothing wrong with that. Personal relationship with Rybka author has grown to the point where they feel as if part of the team, and there is also an emotional attachment -- so testing another engine that's much stronger/better than the one they helped produce, and publishing the results seem inappropriate. Who can blame them?!

[yanquis1972]

Here is a true independent chess engine ratings list: SWCR by Frank Quisinsky. All engines are tested including Fruit derivative such as Rybka. He said he would be testing Houdini soon as he has the opportunity.

IPON chess engine ratings list is another independent website to check for top engines. Only issue I have with this list is that raw game data is not provided.

There was a time when CCRL was independent, but now they are Rybka beta testers who receive free copies of the final product; nothing wrong with that. Personal relationship with Rybka author has grown to the point where they feel as if part of the team, and there is also an emotional attachment -- so testing another engine that's much stronger/better than the one they helped produce, and publishing the results seem in appropriate. Who can blame them?!

unfortunately igno's site is frozen at 1483 games of the 1900. anyone else seeing this? afraid he had a comp crash overnight which is unfortunate since i was looking to get an 'official' houdini result tonight USA time.

[BB+]

Things aren't as bad as they once were. TalkChess is (at least currently) not censoring it.

There was a time when CCRL was independent, but now they are Rybka beta testers who receive free copies of the final product; nothing wrong with that. Personal relationship with Rybka author has grown to the point where they feel as if part of the team, and there is also an emotional attachment -- so testing another engine that's much stronger/better than the one they helped produce, and publishing the results seem in appropriate. Who can blame them?!

I much appreciate CCRL, but feel that its focus has been mis-oriented, or at least mis-understood. For some reason, others have pointed to it as the "gold standard" of ratings lists, but the thing I find useful about it is that it canvasses so many engines.

I would say that the idea of a ratings "league" is a bit of a bad idea. I would say you should either: have a "league" like Chess War, or TCEC, or many others; or, do a proper quasi-scientific ratings service -- but trying to have a "league" and act as if the ratings are anything more than just local to your "league" is where I find there to be a bit of unclear purpose. CCRL (and all of this applies to CEGT too) manages to be a "pooled league", which to me seems to end up with the worst of both worlds: the "league" aspect for individual testers is diminished (you don't get a "champion" as with TCEC), while the manner of the pooling such results exaggerates the value of the ratings. Maybe it should be called some like "Meta Rating List of Various Certified Local Computer Chess Leagues" or some other monstrosity. [Though at some point, I don't see why you don't go further and merge even results outside your "pooled league" into such a meta-list].

So to recapitulate: CCRL (or CEGT) is a pooled league with its own rating list. This could be re-phrased as saying it's a bunch of individual testers, each with his own "league", who then merge together their results to make a meta-rating list. So then, why stop there in doing this meta-operation? Why not include CEGT or SWCR in with CCRL results? If FIDE doesn't have separate ratings for "separate conditions", why should computer chess? [The CCRL statement "We thought that our hobby would be more meaningful if we combined our results by being part of a group" begs the question: why not pool your results more widely?]. As has been pointed out in other places the "standard conditions" of these leagues can often be rather lacking in uniformity across testers (such as benchmarking to find out what "40/40" on a given computer means). The current situation seems to be one where you are either in a CCRL/CEGT "circle" or you're not, and such decisions seem more based on social aspects (or even the politics of exclusion) rather than anything else.

As for any emotional attachment, I think (though not sure) that Rybka has been #1 for the entire history of CCRL (since 2006), which might play some type of rôle.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

There was a time when CCRL was independent, but now they are Rybka beta testers who receive free copies of the final product; nothing wrong with that. Personal relationship with Rybka author has grown to the point where they feel as if part of the team, and there is also an emotional attachment -- so testing another engine that's much stronger/better than the one they helped produce, and publishing the results seem inappropriate. Who can blame them?!

I suspect that this is probably a bit unfair. I doubt that there is a direct relationship between Rybka and CCRL (maybe a couple of CCRL testers are Rybka beta testers, but that's not really a big deal). However, I am willing to wager that CCRL testers haven't had to dole out much, if any, money on the commercial chess engines they test, and that they have access to unreleased (tournament-variant or beta) versions of many other engines. And that they cherish the relationships which feed this aspect of their hobby, as well as the sense that they occupy an important place in the community at large. I don't think that this is limited to Rybka, though. Testing unvetted engines would most definitely piss off the Rajlichs, Daileys, etc. and that might be it for the promotional consideration they receive. They're just protecting their privileges.

[thorstenczub]

you have no clue concerning don dailey.
you speak about him as if he is ossi weiner or matthias wüllenweber.
don is a completely different type of person.

he is there to do computerchess. he ever was. and he contributed much.

i would not relate him with rajlich.