Talk:Houdini (chess)

copied from website?
Most of this seems to be copied from the Houdini website. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 04:53, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. It is a badly written article. -Koppapa (talk) 07:46, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I have revamped the whole article and now it sounds more like an encyclopedia, than a marketing pamphlet. ∞4 (talk) 08:35, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
 * And there's Houdini 2.0 out now, so better update the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.103.76.190 (talk) 01:11, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The article has been updated. ∞4 (talk) 08:35, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I disputed the neutrality of some sentences as it looks like it is an exact copy/paste from their website. Especially the sentences: "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. Even though it plays positionally, it will often use razor-sharp tactics to deny its opponents escape routes when it has the better position" Despite ∞4's appreciated efforts, I still have the feeling the text is somewhat commercial --Facharbeit (talk) 16:38, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Did you read 'According to the author', maybe the text should be quoted to read easier. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 18:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of the quote, though it feels a little funny, grammatically, but maybe its just me. ∞4 (talk) 21:07, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Houdini 3
CCRL: Houdini 3 64-bit 4CPU Elo rating is 3334. It is the best chess engine in the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.81.175.122 (talk) 07:06, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Relevant reference to rating lists has been made where appropriate. I believe that because all computer rating lists follow their own "version" of the elo rating system, tuned to their preferences, an absolute rating value, or even a comparison between different rating lists, and the FIDE rating scale (for humans) would be inappropriate. Ratings are also continuously fluctuating therefore, it would be unwise to provide any absolute rating value in the article. ∞4 (talk) 08:44, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Refs

 * http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/free-houdini-beats-commercial-rybka-23-5-16-5/
 * http://gambit.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/it-was-houdini-over-rybka-in-computer-chess-challenge/ Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:44, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

"Top-rated Chess Engine" Claim
The lead section of the article claims that Houdini is "the top-rated chess engine on major chess engine rating lists". The sentence is sourced with five references, but none of the sources actually support the claim that Houdini is "top-rated". Therefore I have decided to place a   tag on the citations. Before I delete the sentence, I just want to understand if this sentence really is a false claim, or I'm missing something important. I'm planning on deleting the sentence soon if nobody objects (given that the objection is supported by a good reason, of course).  CarnivorousBunny talk • contribs  20:20, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
 * It was #1 back in October last year and this March but since has been overtaken. Should be rephrased or deleted. -Koppapa (talk) 20:49, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

The "Controversial origins" section
I've removed it because the statements have obvious WP:BLP implications, but are sourced to a forum (i.e. a self-published source) which is not acceptable. Note WP:SPS: Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.

This is without prejudice against the section's content: it is OK to reintroduce it, as long as it is properly sourced. However, if there is no way to source this content properly, then it must stay out of the article. GregorB (talk) 15:09, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

The "Controversy" section (H6)
I do acknowledge that the quality of the references could be better. However, those are what are currently available. I also have the following remarks to add:


 * The claims have been technically verified beyond a doubt: H6 is a derivative work of Stockfish and GPL violation has been made. The verification has been done by the chess engine developer community. What is really missing is an authority (e.g., a respectable chess web site) publishing something citable on the topic.
 * I have verified some of the claims myself. For example, the H6 transposition table hash code is clearly from Stockfish, even if translated to Dutch. It even contains the same subtle bug Stockfish 8 has. There is no plausible reason for an original work to somehow manage to duplicate a subtle non-trivial bug. (The bug is about a hash entry key with zero value, which I have later fixed in Stockfish.)
 * Others have verified other critical parts (e.g., search and evaluation) of the engine being derivatives.
 * The Stockfish maintainers have also verified the claims after the matter was brought into their attention. That is clear from the fishcooking forum post I cited.
 * The TCEC ruling has been officially announced and the H6 results have been removed from the "Winners" tab in tcec-chess.com. Unfortunately, the announcement only exists in TCEC discord at the moment, and I'm not quite sure how citable that is. (Requires login and joining the TCEC discord server.) Also, I can't cite the TCEC season winners tab.
 * I have asked the TCEC organizers to publish the ruling in a citable form.
 * I have also asked chessdom (organizer of TCEC) to update their S10 article on H6 winning the season. That article ( http://www.chessdom.com/houdini-is-tcec-season-10-champion/ ) has been retracted after the request.

As better sources become available, I'll see that the current ones are replaced accordingly. Skiminki (talk) 15:31, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think we're on the same page here. The claim is controversial (in the sense that it can lead to lawsuits), which means it must be very reliably sourced. The best sources available are already cited, but they are also self-published sources that fail WP:SPS. Furthermore, even if the claims are true, WP:VNT applies. Therefore the section itself is problematic. What we really need is someone (Chessbase, Chessdom, etc) to publish an article that addresses the claim. If they ever do so then we can cite the entire section to that article; as it is we just don't have good-enough sources and it would be defensible to delete the entire section until the sources are available. Banedon (talk) 01:04, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

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Clone of Stockfish 8
Houdini 6 is a clone of Stockfish 8. 107.77.173.41 (talk) 21:32, 7 April 2020 (UTC)