The magician is back! With the latest version of his Houdini 5 chess software, Robert Houdart has succeeded in catapulting himself back into the inner circle of computer chess, all while managing to maintain the unique and individual character of his engine.
Its release took some time, with it now being almost three years since the appearance of its predecessor. But the wait has certainly been worth it! The Houdini 5 chess software brings a rejuvenated and reinvigorated engine to the board, weighing in at 200 Elo points stronger than Houdini 4! This represents an unbelievable jump in playing strength. One that programmer Robert Houdart was only able to achieve by adding a range of new techniques and ideas.
An important factor here is the completely redesigned evaluation function. It has been retuned to better take king safety and piece play into account. Houdini’s unique playing style is the result of a clever combination of aggressive playing ideas. Not to mention healthy positional and strategic understanding. What makes playing and analyzing with Houdini 5 particularly exciting is the sheer range of ideas it comes up with. The program has all the hallmarks of unbridled creativity. Where other engines see no way to make progress, Houdini conjures up hidden and surprising resources!
As opposed to its earlier version, Houdini 5 is more selective when arriving at candidate moves. This enables it to reach higher search depths and pays off in all stages of the game. Particularly so when it comes to the endgame. For perfect endgame play, Houdini 5 can use the Syzygy-Tablebases* (available on 4 DVDs as “Endgame Turbo 4”) combined with the Nalimov Tablebases, and is thus always able to find the quickest way to mate.* Houdini 5 also uses the “lazy SMP” algorithm, meaning it is able to achieve better results on multi-processor systems than ever before. The new engine can harness the computing power of up to 128 cores simultaneously.
The preliminary release version of Houdini 5 won convincingly ahead of all other top programs. It scored 56 points from 62 games (50 wins and 12 draws) in the recent “TCEC Season 9 Rapid” tournament. The final release of Houdini 5 surpasses even this performance by another 30 Elo points. Thus, making it the strongest program in the world.
* Tablebases are not included in the delivery of Houdini 5
Included in the scope of supply:
– Houdini 5 Engine (Standard or Pro)
– The latest Fritz 15 program interface
– Premium membership to playchess.comand Premium for your ChessBaseAccount (6 months)
– Online access to the world’s largest analysis database, “Let’s Check”, with over 200 million deeply analyzed positions (6 months
HOUDINI 5 CHESS SOFTWARE – STANDARD VERSION:
– A multiprocessor engine capable of supporting up to 6 cores and 4 GB of RAM.
– EAN 9783866815797
– Available: 1st of December 2016
HOUDINI 5 CHESS SOFTWARE – PRO VERSION:
– A multiprocessor engine capable of supporting up to 128 cores and 128 GB of RAM.
– The right choice for power users with high-end, high-performance hardware.
– EAN 9783866815803
– Available: 1st of December 2016
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Minimum: Pentium III 1 GHz, 2 GB RAM, Windows 7/8, DirectX9, graphics card with 256 MB RAM, DVD-ROM drive, Windows Media Player 9 and internet access.
Recommended: PC Intel i5 (Quadcore), 8 GB RAM, Windows 10 or 8.1, DirectX10, graphics card with 512 MB RAM or more, 100% DirectX10-compatible sound card, Windows Media Player 11, DVD-ROM drive and internet access.
