Houdini 3 Pro vs Deep Fritz 13

Impenetrable thickets.

I have a theory on this. The 1.Nf3 line seems to have been "derived" from the 1.d4 line. It looks like a transposition with almost the same move orders.

From the fourth move on, they are perfect transpositions (which explains them being tied with the same score). It's still pretty amazing that the Zukertort prevailed like this, and it would be interesting if this transposition ended up transforming into its own unique line, and then outperforming 1.d4! I will probably be running this calculation for the next full week, so will report back on that.

Back to that theory, just like how it shuffles around the second, third, and fourth positions, scrambling their move orders to try and find the highest-scoring sequence, it also shuffles that first move. And in this case, this transposition outscored 1.e4 so it kicked it off the list.

But since I'm only allowing two lines, now 1.e4 will no longer be evaluated. This kind of defeats the purpose of the contest between the two central pawns, but I guess 1.d4 won fairly since this appears to have happened around 33-ply?

By default, Deep Fritz 13 has you evaluating only two lines. But there seems to be a flaw in this if transpositions can permanently displace the other candidate move.

PS. Where it says 9628 kN/s in the screenshot, that is how fast the calculations are taking place. With 8 cores instead of 6, it will spike up to about 10,000 but not higher. This shows that there are signficant diminishing returns with extra cores (so no need to worry too much if you don't have that many cores at your disposal).

Virtual cores stink on Houdini 3. Read the manual; it states that virtual cores up the 'speed', but other factors make it actually slower. Make sure you use the auto-tune function in the engine, that the hash is set to the correct value for the analysis time allocated, CPU is overclocked, etc.

Having said that, having real 6 cores isn't very rare. While I think computers will outclass all players and play better moves than any human for vast majority of the time in middlegame, I do not think using a computer to analyze the first few moves is a good idea, no matter how strong your computer is. By the time it is, I think we're getting relatively close to solving chess.

I think the time could be better spent analyzing relatively common middle games that result from popular openings, or start in positions like poisoned pawn Najdorf. This type of analysis is good for adding new lines for opening books.

Just for kicks, a while back I let Houdini 2 Pro analyze the first move for 48 hours on a (then) stock Q6600, it went over 30 depth, I think 31 or 32, and suggested d4. Giving each move 1 day after that, I think it chose to play Queen's Pawn, Declined or something like that every time. 

Do we need to be explicit about why computer analysis of opening moves is relatively unproductive?

From my understanding: The opening has literally too many possibilities. The computer plays chess by calculating possible moves for other side, then our side, so on and so forth. While looking 30, 40, 50 moves ahead would be decisive in a middlegame, in the start, those 30, 40, 50 moves won't be accurate at all.

Houdini is very selective in its choices. It will probably only consider looking at a few lines, and miss any other moves that look bad to a person with no positional knowledge. Even if Houdini just looks at e4 alone, there are too many posibilities to even consider calculating that, because an opening move might look decent tactically at the start might end up with a pretty dumb pawn structure in the endgame, and the engine's not going to calculate from start to endgame.

Whereas a human inherits the knowledge of opening theory, of positional values, at the only time in the game where it causes the human to have an advantage. We've also collectively looked at countless openings and possible variations, and discarded ones we know are bad. 

You'd be hard pressed to make Houdini play Najdorf or any other Sicillian without an opening book no matter how long you leave it on to analyze.

So if a computer, which makes better moves by looking into all the possibilities, can find great opening moves at the start of the game where there are most possibilities, doesn't this foreshadow chess being close to solved?

I'm not on Pfren's camp, either. Engines have opening books for a reason: To crush players from start to finish. And those books are getting stronger day by day.

At least with the current technology contraints, it can only approach "solving chess" from relatively deep positions. The earlier you are in the game, the weaker an engine will be because there is just too much to consider. 

Anyway my computer crashed analyzing white's first move... so I reduced it to three cores but also three candidate moves this time. It has thus far ranked them in this order: 1.d4, 1.Nf3, 1.e4. 

What this at least tells us is that the Zukertort (1.Nf3) is both playable and respectable. PS. Houdini's definitive answer to the Zukertort after a few days and 34-ply actually is the Sicilian. 

But as long as you structure your priorities according to how deep you are in the game, you can keep engine analysis righfully adjusted. This means the deeper you are in the game, the more credibility/authority you can give to deep analysis. But early on, it's more important to see what grandmasters have to say about the strategic themes of each move, as well as to consider which moves have the best stats on the highest (human) level. 

Another point I dare say, which has not yet been brought up in this thread, is that our choice of openings should be more about the flavor of game that we prefer to play. We should find openings that interest us and generally provide the kinds of games we like to see/play. From there computer analysis becomes extremely valuable. If anything, memorizing as many computer-approved lines as you can will save you from falling for early traps and therefore give you a solid chance at either drawing or winning. 

update: 1.Nf3 now bumped 1.d4 off for the #1 spot! @31-ply.

The most it can say is the Zuckerfort is a decent opening, among all other other good openings. I don't see a point in spending time to analyze those moves.

Frankly, these chess engines are about as useful as asking a Porsche how to run faster.

You are worried because Houdini 3 takes a longer time than Fritz 13 to get to a given evaluation. How do you know that the Fritz evaluation is "more correct" than the Houdini one?

Being a rather hi-level centaur player, I use Critter to analyse and evaluate. Critter is not-so-original, it's based on some older Rybka code. It plays more or less on par with Houdini 1.5, and it is probably weaker than Houdini 3- but his moves are more natural, more "human-like".

For analysing endgames, I always use Stockfish. It is by far the most reliable engine, sorry to say that Houdini's handling of the endgame is questionable, at best.

well i think lets check is a good idea but the analysis is way to short, but maybe i there is an option to make it deeper that i have missed.

Heres a game i set up with the two engines running on a core two quad, using 2 core's each

Sorry to say that this game is laughable, both sides involved.

hash table woes maybe ???

be interested to hear if anyone has any optimum setting for playing two engines off the same machine, done that on a monday morning rushing about getting ready for college,,,,i think set the hash tables for each engine about 700 mb, not too sure, both engines used fritz opening book, another problem maybe, both engines using the same opening book ??

I think you're laughable.

Please go back and enjoy your cooking, but don't eat what you have made. You will be either poisoned, or disgusted. Or probably both, if you don't get disgusted fast enough.

An IM deeming  the level of play that far and away exceeds his own capabilities as 'laughable'... Interesting.

yeah, i also don't get it. it is laughable. why would you want to know the right move when you cannot know the REASON why it is a right move. openings can be very tactical sometimes and while you may think that the engine has some deep positional view which you do not have, that is simply not true. the engine analyzes SHARP lines. there are exchanges, sacrifices, pawn promotions, skewers forks, traps and double attacks behind the scenes. why would you not try and do this yourself to the best of your ability. who cares what the engine thinks?

just in case you don't believe me. look at the theory behind as old openings as the simple giuoco piano, evans gambit or the fried liver attack and how these theories have changed over the years. there are exchange sacrifices, ideas trapping the king in the center at the cost of two pawns and all kinds of mayhem. if the engine tells you at a certain stage that d5 is the right move, who cares, the point is that it probably took 5 years to realize that d5 is a refutation of something. if you don't know that 'something' then knowing d5 is the right move is simply irrelevant.