Compare engines positional knowledge?

[kosulin]

Hi all,
I am not sure this is possible, but has anybody tried to do a comparative analysis of various engines positional strengths and weaknesses?
Few years ago I was a big fan of Hiarcs, but they decided to make it more competitive vs. engines, and I am not sure it is any different from others anymore.
I can't buy many engines to compare myself, and what is even more disturbing: when I tried to compare Rybka 2.3.2 vs. Rybka 3 vs Firebird, I found that I lack necessary knowledge/understanding of modern engine design (and, may be, of chess itself) to prepare adequate set of positions to properly test how engines treat various chess patterns.

[Swaminathan]

Hi all,
I am not sure this is possible, but has anybody tried to do a comparative analysis of various engines positional strengths and weaknesses?
Few years ago I was a big fan of Hiarcs, but they decided to make it more competitive vs. engines, and I am not sure it is any different from others anymore.
I can't buy many engines to compare myself, and what is even more disturbing: when I tried to compare Rybka 2.3.2 vs. Rybka 3 vs Firebird, I found that I lack necessary knowledge/understanding of modern engine design (and, may be, of chess itself) to prepare adequate set of positions to properly test how engines treat various chess patterns.

You may want to check out this positional test suite:

http://sites.google.com/site/strategictestsuite/about-1

Download for each one of them is available in download section.

Best,
Swami