OpenChess

Lets say you're in one of those open tournaments (anything goes). Naturally you want to load up with firepower so which chess engines do you want in the trenches with you when the going gets rough. And, you can have more than one!

The Rybkas, Naum, Zappa, Stockfish, Komodo and Critter.

I would throw a pinch of Shredder and Junior, sometimes they find things others don't.

Yeah, probably Shredder 12 would be a nice addition, I had to drop Shredder 11 by a small edge, so perhaps 12 would have made the list.

Just out of curiosity, what do you see in Komodo and Critter?

Komodo seems to apply what I'd call "strategic" moves, that is, while the other engines are suggesting a computer like move, or just like to shuffle pieces around, Komodo would suggest a move that tries to achieve something. Perhaps this is a placebo based illusion, but it works in practice. For people with Quads, I'd suggest running an instance of each Komodo 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 in parallel, sometimes two of them will suggest the main move you already considered, while the other one will suggest the strategic move.

For Critter, it's about original evaluation and move choice, many other engines like Hiarcs and Spark do this, but Critter seems the stronger one. When you want new ideas for the position, you'd run Critter, sometimes it'll convince all the other engines that he's right.

I don't look at engine names when doing my analysis, I just look at the score and move choice of the engines, so these opinions are hopefully not biased.

Houdini or IvanHoe if the new version is stronger - raw strength
Spark - I'm convinced it has every tactical position on the planet hard-coded into it....
Critter - original move choice
Naum - tends to give a very accurate eval, IMO
Zappa (well, in a few months, Rondo) - a sanity check for all the other engines

Peter

Thanks, I will definitely give those two a go. The one I have not been able to properly form an opinion is Hiarcs 13. It has not made it into my engine mix for analysis.