Best Chess Engine?

Yes! I put Fritz 12 to play with Rybca 4. Rybca won 3 of 4, the last one was a draw. Why are Fritz and Chessmaster worse than for example Rybca and Stockfish? Is it some technical matter...?

I am just curious too do any of you guys use WinBoard ?? I know sometimes when I use chessmaster or other apps that when I go to the analysis it will kind of explain to me what is good/bad. When I use these anaylsis programs to analyze a current position it shoots out stuff like this in the "engine output"

23    -1.55    2189.5M    173:13.10    d5 g3 Qh3 exd5 O-O Re1 Ng4 Nf3 Nf6 Bg5 Qh5 Bxf6 gxf6 Qd3
 22    -1.54    1254.9M    102:04.52    d5 g3 Qh3 exd5 O-O Re1 Ng4 Nf3 Nf6 Bf1 Qd7 Ne5 Qd8 Bg5
 21    -1.57    669.5M    58:44.67    d5 g3 Qh3 exd5 O-O Re1 Ng4 Nf3 Qh5 Bf4 Bf5 Be2 g5 Bxg5
 21    -1.65    337.5M    33:11.62    d6 Nxf7 Rf8 Ng5 Nc6 Nf3 Qh5 h3 Qg6 e5 dxe5 dxe5 Nd7

The first number I just originally thought that was the result it was given but I noticed mine starts at 2 and then goes up however some numbers also repeat (21, 21, 22, 23) So not quite sure what the first # is. The second number I was thinking this is the change in position from the last move to this one. So most of my moves give me a -1.65 in my position so this was a bad move. Next number where it is referencing the millions not sure what this is but possibly it is the # of variables it analzyed for my next move. The next number is the time it took to think of the next move. And the end is the next string of possible moves from my last one???? If someone could help me that would be great, first time using an anlysis program and I think other programs shoot out similiar inputs of analysis so anyhelp is appreciated thnx

Houdini should be the strongest engine, but the question is, if its the best for human use? I dont know the answer, but I know Natalia Pogonina suggested using Houdini and Rybka 4 together for the best possible engine use.

dkasprick:

The first number is the search depth: how many halfmoves the engine searched ahead to evaluate the position. (Note that modern engines greatly exaggerate this, because they search selectively. So if they say they searched 23 ply, it is only true for some of the branches, but there could be other branches they consider unimportant, which were searched to only maybe 13 ply.) The engine steps up this number as it goes, searching forever deeper if you give it more time.

The second number is the evaluation of the position. (Not a difference with the previous position, so it does not say anything about your move.) If it is -1.00, you are 1 Pawn behind. (The sign might differ depending on the engine; there is no clear convention for this, white point-of-view versus side-to-move point-of-view.) Note that this is 'future oriented', so it might be better to say you will be a Pawn behind eventually, if both sides play their best moves (so after the 23 ply.)

The third number is the number of positions the engine searched through for obtaining the result.

The list of moves is the 'principal variation', the line that the engine thinks represents best play for both sides.

DUDE: at your level (and mine) it is totally irrelevant which engine is "strongest" they're all light-years ahead of players like us. But if you're that concerned or interested than make sure you have a state-of-the PC with a quad-core processor if you must have the latest and greatest chess-playing program than you will also need the latest and greatest PC to run it on.

Houdini 1.5, Stockfish and Firebird are all free and if I had know they could run in database programs (and free databases too) I would never have spent $50 or so on Fritz 12.

GNUchess is pretty good.

But it's still fun to know......

You might want to catch up to what "state-of-the-art" is, dude. Quad-core is just a lowly basic system now.

Your 2600k will only do 4.7? That's barely over stock, dude!

I'll take my Hexa-core (1366 socket) @ 4.375 anyday.

Houdini 2 seems to be the best, followed by houdini 1.5, Fire, and Rybka. I'm eagerly waiting for the MP version of Komodo, which I hope will outrank Rybka.

Is Houdini written to benefit from parallel processing?

Here's the deal...

Any chess engine is like the CPU characters of fighting games, like Street Fighter games and Mortal Kombat games. In other words, every chess engine has weaknesses and patterns. Exploit their patterns and you win against them everytime just like the CPU characters...

Stockfish 6 and HIARCS are the best 

Lol really? Zombie thread