Komodo Chess 9

I posted this on the Chess.com forums and thus far it hasn't garnered any responses and so I thought I would give it a try here, too, especially since the average user here is probably far more knowledgeable about this sort of thing anyway:

http://www.uscfsales.com/komodo-chess-9-multiprocessor-version.html

Bottom line: As I'm getting more and more serious about the game and playing competitively, I want to envelope myself with the absolute best training material I can afford. Thus far I have done that.

When it comes to this software, Komodo Chess 9, and all that it comes with in the package for $99.99 now (they just dropped the price) I'm wondering the following:

1) Komodo 9 is currently the #1 or #2 engine in seemingly a huge majority's opinion. Komodo claims to excel positionally and I'm curious as to if this is truly the case. Can someone who has experience with it confirm?

2) It just released in May. How long before I see "Komodo 9 SE" or "Komodo 10" available? I don't want to spend $100 now just to see something new release in the near future and I'm not familiar with how frequently they roll out these kind of programs.

3) With the access to all of the Chessbase material, the cloud database, and the Playchess account for a year, $99 is a great value, no?

Just want to clear a few things up before I make the purchase. Thanks in advance for all who can contribute.

edit: I actually see that the company that makes Komodo themselves sell a 9.2 version for $60 USD. It provides ~30 ELO points of additional strength. Not that I would need this or anything but ...I see they would be rolling out small updates now and then.

To me I am happy using Stockfish as it is free, I did recently get chessbase 13 and I would feel that a database program is more important to a engine.

1) I have never used Komodo.
2) Updates happen regularly, I would expect you to be able to upgrade your version of Komodo at a reduced rate when a new version is released.
3) It really is excellent except for playchess part as lichess is much better! You do get all the above and more with chessbase. It comes with Fritz 11 free of charge and you can integrate Stockfish easily.

Books & DVD's could be of more value than a engine depending on your level. I would say you will get a more better understanding of a position from going through a chess book or DVD compared to playing through engine moves.

#1

For your rating level, either engine is fine.

The claim that komodo excels positionally is more marketing than actual fact. In reality "positional play" is very subjective and hard to judge. If I were to show you 10 games, 5 by stockfish and 5 by komodo, you wouldn't know which is which.

That said, stockfish is free and as strong if not stronger than komodo, so I think it would overwhelmingly have the advantage. Unless you are playing at a very high level, or you do tons of opening research where you require different engines for maximum novelty generation or something, I would say either is fine.

I would second what AMADAN said; Chessbase+Integrated engine+Stockfish will probably be an overall better investment of money for your purpose.
You are basically get the same UI, but with more features, same online capabilities and equally strong engines

Thanks very much for the input on this, guys. You saved me $100+ on this.

It seems to me then that these engines themselves are a novelty and really a matter of excess than necessity, huh? Considering, as you have, that Stockfish performs the way it does and is free.

From this rating list http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/ seems that komodo is a little bit stronger tahn komodo, but i think it don't worth 100 $, when you can have stockfish for free. In order to, in future stockfish could exceed komodo.

I've been watching a few games on youtube where people pit Komodo 9.2 vs Stockfish 6 SE and generally, Komodo flat out beats it in 5/0 blitz and statistically it scores better in 40/40 games. The combination of Stockfish + Lichess + ChessTempo is probably more than good enough for me on this front right now (I also have LucasChess) although I am definitely a little itchy to buy that Komodo 9 package for $99. It just comes with so much and I've seen packages like that run as high as $170.

#7.

Please do not be fooled by all the marketing fluff out there. Many people on youtube who conduct these matches don't have a clue about engine matches in the first place. Moreover, statistically speaking you need to play thousands of games to make any reasonable claim as to which is stronger. CCRL does a decent job but uses very old hardware. Their 40/40 time control is more like 5/5 on current generation i7.

Stockfish and komodo are always evolving. Stockfish 6 was released eons ago, and the current development versions is +35 elo stronger than Stockfish 6.

Last internal test here: http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/55bab2280ebc590abbe1bdeb

See latest stockfish in action here: http://tcec.chessdom.com/live.php

If you seek the latest and greatest, stockfish dev is still stronger than Komodo 9.2. You can download dev versions from the stockfish website. Lichess stockfish also uses the latest dev versions automatically, not stockfish 6, so you always get the latest and greatest.

Anyway, stockfish and komodo are just so close together, and so far, far ahead of the best human players, the benefit you get from an arbitrary +10 elo or something is negligible.

@ #7: Very, very well put and informative. Thank you. Ok...you've definitively talked me out of shelling it out on Komodo and continuing my Lichess + Stockfish + ChessTempo thing. I still play on Chess.com but less and less these days.

Let's wrap up this thread with the following: Now that you know I'm ~1400 and where I stand as far as understanding software, is there any software that you *would* recommend that would fall in a similar price range? Or would you still say that my money would be better spent saved and instead I should work on getting the most out of Stockfish?

Thanks again. Your post was really helpful.

The main reason to obtain Komodo would not be so much for strength, but for its style compared to Stockfish. You can get Komodo 6 from their webpage as a free download, and see if you like it. It's 150 Elo behind the latest, but as others point out this is probably not that important unless you are rather strong at chess already. Described another way, a 150 Elo difference is equivalent to about a 5x speedup in hardware.