Positionally strong chess engines

[Dan O'Dowd]

Hey,

I use Fritz as a sparring partner every now and then, and of course as an analysis partner after I annotate my games. While I find its tactical lines very interesting, and in some positions where I'm strongest I can understand the nature of its improvements, there are of course some sorts of game where Fritz suggests things that are beyond my level of understanding (143 ECF, highest sustained performance tends towards 165).

I'm reading through Reassess Your Chess and Simple Chess at the mo, to iron out the positional weaknesses I have from having learned the game myself. While I'm sure the examples aren't perfect, I know that until I understand them I won't go trying to improve them.

This brings me to the question at hand. Can anyone suggest a preferably free chess engine whose primary strength is its positional skill? That is, if I switch it on in any given position, it will avoid making any positional errors of the human sort? I have no access to a stronger training partner at the moment, and though I'm working on it, it'd be nice not to have to annotate my games with moves x y and z, and have those rejected in favour of concepts which seem to go against precisely the level of material I'm learning.

[Alex Holowczak]

Try Houdini: http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm