Arena opening books

Arena books

I enjoy building opening books for the Arena Chess GUI. These are primarily for my own use (but if they are of interest to others then great!). They are not designed to compete with the excellent work of others in this area.

My personal opening book (CTbook_v2) is now available on my download page.

Key data

It is based on my own pgn database of more than 2 million games collected since 1997. Key book characteristics include:

	base data - 34,152 contemporary games (between 1985-2005) involving GM players (both 2550+ elo)
	all completed games > 30 moves
	book depth 15 moves maximum
	manual tuning using Shredder 7.04

Testing

I don't claim my book is particularly good but I enjoy testing it with a variety of engines against other books. You can find the results of this book testing here

Previous version

An earlier version of my personal opening book (ctbook v1.1) using a different games source is hosted on the main Arena website (under ‘User files/opening books’). This is the version tested by Sedat Canbaz in his long-running book test and is currently performing well!

Engine v Engine neutral book - (libra8) 15 June 2008

I have run many engine tournaments over the years and have decided to use this experience to build my own dedicated book for these tournaments. The key objective has been to produce positions that are as balanced as possible at the end of the book whilst also ensuring a good range of openings are played (and thereby reducing the potential number of duplicate games). Book depth is restricted to 8 moves to ensure that it is the engines that are tested!

Key data

	base data - 31,000 games between carefully selected engines
	selection criteria based on all drawn games within pre-defined game length at minimum time controls
	book depth - 8 moves
	manual analysis of key lines with variety of engines
	iterative testing process

Club players - special books

I have also built a number of specialist books for particular openings primarily for my own use. These are not designed specifically for strength but to allow club players in-depth practice of individual openings. As a result, books are drawn from games of players of all strength (not just GM) to maximise the range of potential responses. Book depth is in each case 12 moves and duplicate games have been removed from source pgn files.

If you have any requests for particular openings or would like any of these files in a different format (eg *.ctg) or the source pgn files themselves please let me know and I will include them.

All my books to date are available from my download page