Answers.Body: <p>According to <a href="http://en.chessbase.com/post/hartmann-choosing-a-chess-engine" rel="nofollow">Hartmann's findings</a> in an article in ChessBase: </p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Houdini is a tactical juggernaut. It tends to do best on the various
    tactical test sets that some engine experts have put together, and it
    is fairly quick to see those tactics, making it useful for a quick
    analysis of most positions. Its numerical evaluations also differ from
    other engines in that they are calibrated to specific predicted
    outcomes:</p>
    
    <p>A +1.00 pawn advantage gives a 80% chance of winning the game against
    an equal opponent at blitz time control. At +2.00 the engine will win
    95% of the time, and at +3.00 about 99% of the time. If the advantage
    is +0.50, expect to win nearly 50% of the time. (from the Houdini
    website)</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Larry Kaufman, who works on Komodo, said in an interview on the Quality Chess blog that:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Komodo is best at evaluating middlegame positions accurately once the
    tactics are resolved. Stockfish seems to be best in the endgame and in
    seeing very deep tactics. Houdini is the best at blitz and at seeing
    tactics quickly. Rybka is just obsolete; I like to think of Komodo as
    its spiritual desceendant, since I worked on the evaluation for both,
    although the rest of the engines are not similar. Komodo’s assessment
    of positions is its strong point relative to the other top two, which
    overvalue the queen. Komodo has the best sense for relative piece
    values I think. Komodo is also best at playing the opening when out of
    book very early.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>In the article, they conduct some tests using very complex positions, to see if engines can find the solution.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-12-28T16:38:23.723Z
Answers.Text: The article is suspect in that the author apparently uses a crappy old computer for his tests.  He allocated 500Mb for each engine? What? The chess engines are written and tuned to use the hardware of the day. And this day (2014 according the article), it would be reasonable to allocate 8Gb or more memory when testing high-end chess software on world-class benchmarks.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Tony Ennis
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-12-28T16:46:05.583Z
Answers.Text: Problem #2 took 1:47 on my untuned Stockfish 6.  heh.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Tony Ennis
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-12-28T16:55:32.153Z
Answers.Text: And for the fun of it, at 2:47, the score flips from -.23 to +.78 - the engine finds a breakthrough.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Tony Ennis
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-12-28T17:15:09.747Z
Answers.Text: You don't get the point. They are comparing engines to each other, not testing if the engine can solve it with the best hardwares. As long as hardware is the same for the all engines, tests are legit.
Answers.UserDisplayName: ferit
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-12-28T17:47:45.700Z
Answers.Text: I do get it. As soon as he said, "finish in under a minute" he had made a mistake. See the 2nd problem. Further, running on old hardware violates basic premises of chess engine design. It is similar to rating an Indy racer by the way it runs an off-road race, or by judging an aircraft by the way it flies in space.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Tony Ennis
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-12-28T17:49:59.797Z
Answers.Text: It's not 500KB, it's 500MB and it's quite reasonable.
Answers.UserDisplayName: ferit
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-12-28T17:55:22.933Z
Answers.Text: Also, what's wrong with one minute? What's the mistake? Should he wait forever to compare them?
Answers.UserDisplayName: ferit
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Answers.CreationDate: 2015-12-28T15:51:14.027Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2015-12-28T15:51:14.027Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: ferit
Answers.Body: <p>This is just my opinion and I can't really support it scientifically, but from the games played at the last TCEC I had the feeling Komodo plays really great in KID and similiar structure positions. I think it was mainly outplaying Stockfish in this type of positions. It feels very well the positions for knights.</p>
  
  <p>Stockfish is not really great positionally in my opinion, but it is the one calculating the deepest, so it's great at finding Zugzwang positions, and breaking fortresses.</p>
  
  <p>Gull is very strong at simple, almost endgame positions, and drawing little worse endgames.</p>
  
  <p>Actually I always felt houdini is the strongest positionally, it just can't calculate so deep like the other ones, but it's just personal opinion. It is the best to evaluate positional pawn and exchange sacrifices.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-12-28T16:33:05.203Z
Answers.Text: What you write in your answer is interesting, Houdini 4 is considered a tactical engine. Check my answer. I also felt the same way, tactical, while using Houdini 4. Maybe you are using older versions? 1.5?
Answers.UserDisplayName: ferit
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-12-28T16:40:35.007Z
Answers.Text: Yes, sorry I didn't specify, you are right, I have the 1.5a version.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Usern4me
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Answers.CreationDate: 2015-12-28T16:18:44.983Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2015-12-28T16:18:44.983Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Usern4me
Answers.Body: <p>Anecdotally, Leela plays more &quot;humanlike&quot; than more calculating engines like Stockfish (maybe before Stockfish got its own neural nets). What is &quot;humanlike&quot; at 3500+ ELO I'm not sure, but maybe more active piece style versus slow and positional. I recall hearing Caruana trained opening novelties from Leela because they seemed more creative and realistic for a human to play. <a href="https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/breaking-news-from-caruna-leela-is-essential-part-of-his-preparation" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Reported here</a>, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/ospmmb/the_caruana_paradox/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">r/chess discussion</a></p>
  <p>Lots of discussion: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/a7stpp/do_nn_engines_like_alpha_zero_and_leela_really/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/a7stpp/do_nn_engines_like_alpha_zero_and_leela_really/</a></p>
  <p>From watching Matthew Sadler's Silicon Road Channel, I got the impression that Stockfish is a legendary defender. It can somehow hold disadvantageous positions other engines would gradually crumble under. If you asked Sadler directly he'd probably give an excellent answer as he spends a lot of time analyzing engine games.</p>
  
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Answers.CreationDate: 2022-08-11T03:56:10.393Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2023-07-09T15:41:28.400Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2023-07-09T15:41:28.400Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: qwr
Body: <p>We select an engine to use, and stick with it. But I heard that all engines have different characteristics, and can be better or worse comparing to each other, in different positions. For example: The champion engine can be beaten by another engine in some specific position.</p>
  <p>So my question is, which engine to use in which positions?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2015-12-28T16:12:16.810Z
Comments.Text: Possible duplicate of [this question](http://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6059/since-each-engine-has-its-own-style-of-play-which-engines-are-more-positional-s?rq=1).
Comments.UserDisplayName: Glorfindel
Tags: <engines>
Title: Which top engine is strong on what?
ThreadText: # Which top engine is strong on what?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2015-12-28)
  
  We select an engine to use, and stick with it. But I heard that all engines have different characteristics, and can be better or worse comparing to each other, in different positions. For example: The champion engine can be beaten by another engine in some specific position.
  
  So my question is, which engine to use in which positions?
  
  **Tags:** engines
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: Possible duplicate of [this question](http://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6059/since-each-engine-has-its-own-style-of-play-which-engines-are-more-positional-s?rq=1).  
  
  ---
  
  ## 3 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2015-12-28. Score: 3 | Accepted answer
  
  According to [Hartmann's findings](http://en.chessbase.com/post/hartmann-choosing-a-chess-engine) in an article in ChessBase:
  
  > Houdini is a tactical juggernaut. It tends to do best on the various
  > tactical test sets that some engine experts have put together, and it
  > is fairly quick to see those tactics, making it useful for a quick
  > analysis of most positions. Its numerical evaluations also differ from
  > other engines in that they are calibrated to specific predicted
  > outcomes:
  >
  > A +1.00 pawn advantage gives a 80% chance of winning the game against
  > an equal opponent at blitz time control. At +2.00 the engine will win
  > 95% of the time, and at +3.00 about 99% of the time. If the advantage
  > is +0.50, expect to win nearly 50% of the time. (from the Houdini
  > website)
  
  Larry Kaufman, who works on Komodo, said in an interview on the Quality Chess blog that:
  
  > Komodo is best at evaluating middlegame positions accurately once the
  > tactics are resolved. Stockfish seems to be best in the endgame and in
  > seeing very deep tactics. Houdini is the best at blitz and at seeing
  > tactics quickly. Rybka is just obsolete; I like to think of Komodo as
  > its spiritual desceendant, since I worked on the evaluation for both,
  > although the rest of the engines are not similar. Komodo’s assessment
  > of positions is its strong point relative to the other top two, which
  > overvalue the queen. Komodo has the best sense for relative piece
  > values I think. Komodo is also best at playing the opening when out of
  > book very early.
  
  In the article, they conduct some tests using very complex positions, to see if engines can find the solution.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_3**: The article is suspect in that the author apparently uses a crappy old computer for his tests.  He allocated 500Mb for each engine? What? The chess engines are written and tuned to use the hardware of the day. And this day (2014 according the article), it would be reasonable to allocate 8Gb or more memory when testing high-end chess software on world-class benchmarks.  
  > **username_3**: Problem #2 took 1:47 on my untuned Stockfish 6.  heh.  
  > **username_3**: And for the fun of it, at 2:47, the score flips from -.23 to +.78 - the engine finds a breakthrough.  
  > **username_2**: You don't get the point. They are comparing engines to each other, not testing if the engine can solve it with the best hardwares. As long as hardware is the same for the all engines, tests are legit.  
  > **username_3**: I do get it. As soon as he said, "finish in under a minute" he had made a mistake. See the 2nd problem. Further, running on old hardware violates basic premises of chess engine design. It is similar to rating an Indy racer by the way it runs an off-road race, or by judging an aircraft by the way it flies in space.  
  > **username_2**: It's not 500KB, it's 500MB and it's quite reasonable.  
  > **username_2**: Also, what's wrong with one minute? What's the mistake? Should he wait forever to compare them?  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_4 on 2015-12-28. Score: 0
  
  This is just my opinion and I can't really support it scientifically, but from the games played at the last TCEC I had the feeling Komodo plays really great in KID and similiar structure positions. I think it was mainly outplaying Stockfish in this type of positions. It feels very well the positions for knights.
  
  Stockfish is not really great positionally in my opinion, but it is the one calculating the deepest, so it's great at finding Zugzwang positions, and breaking fortresses.
  
  Gull is very strong at simple, almost endgame positions, and drawing little worse endgames.
  
  Actually I always felt houdini is the strongest positionally, it just can't calculate so deep like the other ones, but it's just personal opinion. It is the best to evaluate positional pawn and exchange sacrifices.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_2**: What you write in your answer is interesting, Houdini 4 is considered a tactical engine. Check my answer. I also felt the same way, tactical, while using Houdini 4. Maybe you are using older versions? 1.5?  
  > **username_4**: Yes, sorry I didn't specify, you are right, I have the 1.5a version.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_5 on 2022-08-11. Score: 0
  
  Anecdotally, Leela plays more "humanlike" than more calculating engines like Stockfish (maybe before Stockfish got its own neural nets). What is "humanlike" at 3500+ ELO I'm not sure, but maybe more active piece style versus slow and positional. I recall hearing Caruana trained opening novelties from Leela because they seemed more creative and realistic for a human to play. [Reported here](https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/breaking-news-from-caruna-leela-is-essential-part-of-his-preparation), [r/chess discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/ospmmb/the_caruana_paradox/)
  
  Lots of discussion: <https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/a7stpp/do_nn_engines_like_alpha_zero_and_leela_really/>
  
  From watching Matthew Sadler's Silicon Road Channel, I got the impression that Stockfish is a legendary defender. It can somehow hold disadvantageous positions other engines would gradually crumble under. If you asked Sadler directly he'd probably give an excellent answer as he spends a lot of time analyzing engine games.
  
  
  ---
  
  