Houdini 1.5 vs. Cockatoo

As mentioned in a recent post, I purchased the Chess Enthusiast app for the Nook Color and its Cockatoo engine plays quite well; I can’t seem to beat it in blitz. So, I decided to play a blitz game (10 minutes) pitting it against Houdini. Certainly Houdini performing on my dual core laptop has the edge over Cockatoo on the Nook, but even then Houdini’s blitz play was not perfect. Cockatoo played rather passively and allowed Houdini to build up a strong position, but the surprise was that Houdini’s aggressive play beginning at move 34 was not quite sound. Cockatoo’s defensive abilities were not up to the task and it soon succumbed to a strong attack. When I checked the position with Naum, Fritz 12 and Fire xTreme at move 34 both agreed that 34.Qf3 kept a significant advantage and the hasty 35.Bxg6 was also not the best. Cockatoo’s losing blunder was grabbing the Q at move 37 instead of capturing the R on g3.