Houdini Chess
Houdini is a state-of-the-art chess engine for Windows, the current version Houdini 1.5a is widely considered to be the strongest chess engine on the planet.
Houdini is free for non-commercial use. It can be downloaded, installed and freely used for playing chess games and analysis of chess positions without commercial purpose.
The name Houdini was chosen because of the engine’s positional style, its tenacity in difficult positions and its ability to defend stubbornly and escape with a draw – sometimes by the narrowest of margins.
On the other hand Houdini will often use razor-sharp tactics to deny its opponents escape routes when it has the better position.
As of December 17, 2010, Houdini 1.5 was ranked #1 on the leading IPON computer chess rating list, 50 Elo ahead of Rybka 4 and 100 Elo ahead of Stockfish 1.9 and Critter 0.9.
Houdini is appreciated by many players including top Grand Masters and the current chess World Champion.
After his match against Alexei Shirov, chess World Champion Vishy Anand was asked “OK, three: Fritz, Rybka or Houdini?”. Anand’s reply: “Houdini” (read the full interview).
In another recent interview, when asked the question “If you had to pick one player to represent earth in a chess game vs. aliens, which active player would it be? You can pick different active players for the white and black side, if you feel it necessary”, super GM Peter Svidler had the same simple reply: “Houdini”.
You can contact the author of Houdini, Robert Houdart, with suggestions or problem reports at the following e-mail address: houdini@cruxis.be.
If you enjoy Houdini, feel free to donate to the development of Houdini. Donations will be used for purchasing hardware to improve the testing of Houdini and will contribute directly to future versions.
You can find some information about the next Houdini version at the Houdini 2.0 News page, last updated July 22, 2011.
