Eschecs (white) vs Houdini 1.5a w32 (black), running on a quad core i5 , 5 min blitz game. This is one of the strongest engines on the planet running on one of the more powerful desktop computers
Houdini had 3mins 11sec left on the clock, i was manually entering moves on both engines (two boards)
evaluation was level until Whites pawn to B4 changed the evaluation to 0.8 pawns in blacks favor. Whites queen was chased around while black went on a knight rampage. Houdini then crept forwards evaluation wise for a few moves and then started slinging piece exchanges in whites face. For a few moves it seemed as if the evaluation was slightly swinging back in Eschecs favor but this was Houdini merely 'tidying up'
The White bishop taking the pawn on D4 was an instant blunder that allowed Houdini to spot a forced checkmate in 22 moves, moments later Houdini saw a forced mate in 16, and in fact checkmated Eschecs within 6 moves rather than the 22 first indicated.
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Eschecs FreeBasic
03-15-2014
10:16:57
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Eschecs took hardly anytime at all deciding its moves, letting the engine chew the cud for 3 to 10 seconds per move in a Blitz game is perfectly acceptable. Increasing the brute force ply by 2,3 or 4 should be possible without leaving human players twiddling thier thumbs waiting.
While the outcome was a forgone conclusion i felt that Eschecs had become worthy of a true test against hardware and software which is a 'default standard' in the chess computing world. It was going up against a 10kilanode a second machine that is quite capable of beating the reigning human world champion.
Houdini does a great deal of basic brute force as a foundation but has also been highly tuned to seek deeper convoluted advantages should they appear on the search horizon. It is seldom conservative against weaker opponents and writhing worms are bait to the beast !...its named after the Famous Escape artiste but when the tide is in its favor it will tie its opponents limbs in knots long before they hit the floor !