Book Management

Under Book arrow Manage you get to the following dialogue:

[bookmanagement.bmp]

[_] Tab Sheet "Data"

Behind Arena Main book: you see the current Arena mainbook. You can set a comment and the author of the book here for information purposes. Please do not forget to save afterwards.

With the check box "Use Arena Mainbook" the mainbook can be switched on or off competely.

With the check box "Use Arena Enginebooks" you can switch off all Arena Enginebooks. In this case the engine-specific settings in the engine configuration dialogue do not matter.

Arena Engine books can be configured under Engines / Manage / Details /Books.

The check box "Use transpositions" determines if Arena checks for transpositions while reading the book file. Please note that the current position must be in the book as well as the move found in the book. There will be no transposition from a position not know to the book into the book. This will avoid to transpose into the book from positions where better moves might be available than found in the book.

[_] Tab Sheet "Move Selection"

Here you set the preferences for the selection and the play of book moves.

Under Minimal conditions to play the move you set which conditions must be met to play a move.

  • Minimal number of games: In the book there must be so many games with the move at
  • least
  • Minimal won games: In the book there must be so many won games with the move at
  • least
  • Win percentage white/black: With the move the given percentage of won games must
  • have been reached

If one of these three conditions fails, the move will not be played.

With Probability set by... you set the weight of the factors.

The priority can be set by the user for every move. A move with a higher priority will be played more often than one with lower priority. If you weigh this factor higher than the others, this factor has a higher influence than the others. The priority can be used by you to change the playing probability of a move easily without having to change other data like the number of games etc. of this move.

How important the number of games and the win percentage is for the playing probability you can also adjust here. Arena counts the won and lost games that you imported from PGN or added manually to the book.

This settings will be saved to every book file separately, so that you can use different values for every book file.

[_] Tab Sheet "Import"

In the line Import PGN file you can set a file to import into your book. You can import any number of files, but only one at a time.

Click on the Start button to start the import. First the PGN file will be loaded, the the import process starts.

You can cancel the import process at any time.

You can set up to which half move the games shall be imported (Import to half move).

Whether drawn games shall be imported, you can set here too (Import drawn games).


Some Hints, Step-by-Step:

If you want to use a single book for all engines, you can do the following:

  • Create a book with the "New" button, give it a new name. Type in a comment and the
  • name of the author. Change the play out settings if you like.
  • Make moves on the chessboard and save them to the book with Book / Add line to
  • book. Or import moves with the PGN import function previously described.
  • Go to Engines / Manage / Details. Select the engine. Go to the tab sheet Books. Set
  • the checkbox for "Use Arena Mainbooks with this engine". You have to repeat this procedure for all engines.

  • If the check box "Use Arena Mainbook" in the Book / Manage dialogue, you and all
  • engines can use this book.

If you want to create a special book for one engine and the other engines shall not use this book, do the following:

  • Create a book with the "New" button, give it a new name. Type in a comment and the
  • name of the author. Change the play out settings if you like.
  • Make moves on the chessboard and save them to the book with Book / Add line to
  • book. Or import moves with the PGN import function previously described.
  • Go to Engines / Manage / Details. Select the engine. Go to the tab sheet Books.In the
  • field "Arena Enginebook" type in the name of the book or select it with the browse button.

  • If other Engines shall not use this book, select a different book in the Book / Manage
  • dialogue or disable it with the check box "Use Arena Mainbook" off. Be sure to have the checkbox "Use Arena enginebooks" enabled.