With Houdini loaded but not actively calculating, go to your Engines menu at the top and select Engine 1, configure. Your configurable UCI options for Houdini will then pop up. Look for "MultiPV." Change the value for MultiPV to 2, 3, 4, 5 or... If you change it to 2, Houdini will display the top 2 lines in the analysis output. If you change it to 3, it will show the top 3, etc.
You don't want to go crazy here because using this feature weakens the engine somewhat.
Hi, recently joined this forum though I've visited many times before. Hello all.
I am an amateur chess player. Though I have not played a full game in 20 years, I have recently found myself interested in doing chess problems, which can certainly be done in a relatively short time, compared to actually playing a full game. I have downloaded Arena and Houdini chess engine to help me analyze some positions.
My problem is that the chess engine calculates way ahead, and often all of the variations start with the same move. So if it calculates 12 moves ahead, the first move is often the same for all the, say, 15 variations it shows me, but it's only the third or fourth or later moves that is different in these line. But I want to find out what if the very first move was different, and a ranking of the best first moves. Even if some of these first moves are just awful (like losing queen for a pawn).
For a position I was looking at just now, the 20 plus lines shown are all between 6+ and 4+. I'm sure if considered twenty lines where the very first move was different in every line, maybe the value would be like between 6+ and -25 (or getting checkmate). But that's what I want.
Cause God knows I'm struggling with figuring out the best next move or two (if I really concentrate), I'm not interested in ten moves down the line at this point.
Anyhow, hope I make some sense.