Opening book formats and UIs

[vladstamate]

Hi all,

My engine Plisk has the capability to create its own opening books based on pgn files and it knows about move weights, winning chance, minimum played, etc.

However I would like to be able to manually tune those opening books via some UI: Arena, Aquarium, Chessbase, etc. So (one of) the solution(s) would be to make Plisk read some the more known book formats.

So the question is what are my options?

a) Polyglot books are good but I think there is no UI that can tweak them. Am I wrong? Is there a tool that can convert other book formats to Polyglot?
b) Arena books (abk). Is the format specification open? And if so, where can I find it? I would really prefer this option since Arena is free and has some nice book editing features.
c) Chessbase (ctg) - the format is closed unfortunatelly (yes, I know somebody reversed engineered it, but I'd rather not do something illegal)
d) Aquarium? Scid? Others?

Any suggestion?

Regards,
Vlad.

[Jaap Weidemann]

Polyglot books are good but I think there is no UI that can tweak them. Am I wrong?

Hej Vlad

It is possible to edit PolyGlot books with Scid by selecting "Book tuning" from the "Tools" menu.

Jaap
http://www.weidchess.com/

[vladstamate]

Hi Jaap,

You are right! I did not know that.

I am now changing Plisk to be able to read Polyglot book (rather than own internal format).

Excellent and thanks,
Vlad.

[alpha123]

Hi all,

My engine Plisk has the capability to create its own opening books based on pgn files and it knows about move weights, winning chance, minimum played, etc.

However I would like to be able to manually tune those opening books via some UI: Arena, Aquarium, Chessbase, etc. So (one of) the solution(s) would be to make Plisk read some the more known book formats.

So the question is what are my options?

a) Polyglot books are good but I think there is no UI that can tweak them. Am I wrong? Is there a tool that can convert other book formats to Polyglot?
b) Arena books (abk). Is the format specification open? And if so, where can I find it? I would really prefer this option since Arena is free and has some nice book editing features.
c) Chessbase (ctg) - the format is closed unfortunatelly (yes, I know somebody reversed engineered it, but I'd rather not do something illegal)
d) Aquarium? Scid? Others?

Any suggestion?

Regards,
Vlad.

It's not illegal to use the ChessBase book format.

For example Daydreamer reads it, Brutus also.

Peter