Automatic Analysis

By clicking in the main menu under Engines arrow Automatic Analysis you get to this dialogue.

Here you can automatically analyse moves of a game, several games or a series of positions of an EPD file.

[_] Tab Sheet Source

As a source you may choose the current game, the currently loaded EPD file or a list of PGN and EPD files.

You can set if you want to analyse moves of white or black or both.

If you want to analyse a game you can set the first and the last move to analyse. You can skip unimportant (e.g. opening) moves this way.

As the direction of the analysis you can choose forward or backward.Backward has some advantage if you analyse a game, because the analyses of later moves may be used for the calculation of the previous moves.

If you want to analyse a series of positions of an EPD file, you can select the first and last position to be analysed.

[_] Tab Sheet Engines

You can use the currently loaded engines or select several engines from a list.

The level will be always time per move/ position.

[_] Tab Sheet Output

In the protocol file the principal variations, moves and other information are stored in a detailed form.

Arena calculates a total analysis time (rated time). When a move is found that matches the move in the EPD file, the time taken to first displaying the move counts. If the move is not found, the total (level) time is added to the analysis time. The result is the rated time. It is saved in the protocol file.

The report file contains an overview on the moves and times needed for the solution.

[_] Tab Sheet Options

Abort analyses prematurely is a helpful feature if you want to run test suites quickly. It aborts the analysis of an engine if the two conditions are met: Deepen so many plies means that the solution move must have been the best move for this amount of plies. Minimal analysis depth means that this depth must be searched at least before the analysis of this move or position can be aborted. Normally the probability that the move will be the best is very high if deepen so many plies is set to around 2 and the minimal search depth to >= 9.

The button 'Minimize to tray' hides Arena in the tray area next to the clock.