The world champions Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Petrosian and Karpov, among others, were considered to be particularly tough defenders. This is not a surprise, because without inventive defensive faculties no chess player can make it to the top of the world. These are quite remarkable abilities which, what about chess is concerned, you can very well find in the engine named after Houdini. Little by little, his tricks took on more and more grotesque forms: He even freed himself under water and later also from strait jackets hung upside down from skyscrapers'. In the Wikipedia article dedicated to him, we read the following about his escape tricks: New about Houdini's show was that he was actually able to escape from every sort of shackles provided to him and was tied up naked under test conditions by experienced police officers for advertising purposes.' He was even able to escape from the handcuffs put on him by the police. When he was four years old, his family left Austria-Hungary and emigrated to the USA. His real name was Erik Weisz and he lived from 1874 to 1926.

Harry Houdini was the stage name of an American escape artist and magician of Hungarian origin. At the same time Houdini will deny its opponents the same escape routes when it has the better position.' (a) Why did it eventually become Houdini'? On his homepage Robert Houdart explained why: The name 'Houdini' was chosen because of the engine's tenacity in difficult positions and its ability to defend stubbornly and escape with a draw – sometimes by the narrowest of margins. First of all you'll notice that the first four letters correspond to the last name of the programmer.

He decided to call it Houdini', certainly with good reason. In the middle of May 2010 the Belgian Robert Houdart had completed the first version of his chess program. How strong was Houdini 1 and what were its special qualities? How was the program improved and what makes it especially valuable for chess analysis? On the occasion of the tenth anniversary I would like to answer these questions and of course also look at Houdini's performance in computer tournaments. 1 in the world and dominate computer chess for several years. At that time nobody could have guessed that only seven months later Houdini would replace Rybka as No. 'Welcome to the Houdini Chess Engine home page.' You could read this sentence for the first time in May 2010, when the programmer Robert Houdart offered the first version of his new chess program for free download. Still no ChessBase Account? learn more > The ultimate chess experience every day, Pla圜 welcomes 20,000 chess players from all around the world – from beginner to grandmaster.Memorize it easily move by move by playing against the variation trainer. Still no ChessBase Account? learn more > Learn openings the right way! Build and maintain your repertoire.Still no ChessBase Account? learn more > Real Fun against a Chess Program! Play, analyze and train online against Fritz.Top authors like Daniel King, Lawrence Trent and Rustam Kasimdzhanov Still no ChessBase Account? learn more > Thousands of hours of high class video training.Still no ChessBase Account? learn more > Sac, sac, mate! Solve tactical positions of your playing strength.

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Houdini engine