The purpose of this is to figure out which one would best help my game for analysis. All of these engines are incredibly strong, capable of correcting any blunders in our chess games. The reason I have this question is because they all play so strong, but they're different engines, which means they must have some distinct differences between their choice of moves. Maybe one is more accurate with following middle game plans, maybe one is better with closed/open or semi positions, or maybe one has better endgame play. What do you believe are the key differences between these top engines and why?
Stockfish 8 is free.
Everybody knows that Stockfish is free. That doesn't answer my question.
Houdini 5 is the best, I think.
As you noted, they're all incredibly strong, and all are more than strong enough to point out your mistakes.
Honestly, with these top engines, despite the speculations some people will make (you'll find plenty on the various computer chess forums about some engines playing the French poorly, or the King's Indian well, etc.), there's nothing too accurate we can say along the lines of engine Y playing better in positions of type X, while engine Z plays better in positions of type A.
What we can say is that there are going to be positions in which Komodo finds a better approach to the position than Stockfish, and vice versa (and the same with Houdini compared to each of those two); there's no strong evidence suggesting anything so general as "this one's better at middlegame plans".
For the best analysis, you'd probably want to use all of them.
If you're going to pick just one, then just pick the strongest, which at this moment will be the latest version of SF.
Honestly, with these top engines, despite the speculations some people will make (you'll find plenty on the various computer chess forums about some engines playing the French poorly, or the King's Indian well, etc.), there's nothing too accurate we can say along the lines of engine Y playing better in positions of type X, while engine Z plays better in positions of type A.
What we can say is that there are going to be positions in which Komodo finds a better approach to the position than Stockfish, and vice versa (and the same with Houdini compared to each of those two); there's no strong evidence suggesting anything so general as "this one's better at middlegame plans".
For the best analysis, you'd probably want to use all of them.
If you're going to pick just one, then just pick the strongest, which at this moment will be the latest version of SF.
Their strength differences is about 10 to 30 elo on a level no human can grasp, so tpr's comment may indeed be the most relevant thing to note, even if it doesn't answer the question
@Super-Hero Chessbase solves your problem. If you buy e.g Komodo 10 engine with interface running by playchess.com, you can use a cloud engine analysis where you can see the top choice moves of all the top engines according to your actually position on the board.
like @a_pleasant_illusion mentioned: Engines have their strength/weakness differences according to specific positions.
Mostly divided in complicated endgames with much pawn power out of my experience. The level of this difference doesnt matter on human understanding and ressources. they all can give you top advices which do help you.
Mentionable is also that every of these 3 said engines have beaten each other already several times.
I prefer Komodo as a personal favourite because i like the early midgame choices of it in silent positions :)
like @a_pleasant_illusion mentioned: Engines have their strength/weakness differences according to specific positions.
Mostly divided in complicated endgames with much pawn power out of my experience. The level of this difference doesnt matter on human understanding and ressources. they all can give you top advices which do help you.
Mentionable is also that every of these 3 said engines have beaten each other already several times.
I prefer Komodo as a personal favourite because i like the early midgame choices of it in silent positions :)
More important than which of those engines you use would be the depth that engine is searching. You will get a more accurate assessment of the correct move/plan with a larger search depth.
But honestly, I've found the free stockfish here on lichess, depth 23 ply, to be totally sufficient for pretty much any analysis.
But honestly, I've found the free stockfish here on lichess, depth 23 ply, to be totally sufficient for pretty much any analysis.
Stockfish 8 is half a year old now.
I recommend using latest development builds from abrok.
http://abrok.eu/stockfish/
I recommend using latest development builds from abrok.
http://abrok.eu/stockfish/
is there any difference dude?
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