An EPD Opening Book

[Norm Pollock]

I see a lot of opening books being made, so I decided to do one myself. Of course I need a gimmick to compete so I chose to make the book in "epd" format.

I made an epd file of 3710 positions that occurred after 8 moves (16 plies) in high level human games. Each position is unique and occurred at least 10 times in my databases (289,000 games).

This epd opening book is a neutral book and is suitable for use in a GUI that enables epd files to be used as opening books. Arena is one such GUI. I am not familiar with other GUIs so I do not know if they can handle an epd book.

The link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?227ddz01f0xhmht

Even though some positions occurred much more often than others, one over 4000 times, each of the 3710 positions has an equal probability of being chosen by the GUI. The positions are NOT weighted based on popularity. Each position occurred at least 10 times in my filtered databases of high quality games of players rated 2400+ and the games were played within the last 20 years.

[Graham Banks]

Any chance of getting it in pgn format?

[Norm Pollock]

Any chance of getting it in pgn format?

To put epd into pgn form you have to put the epd in as a fen. Other than the fen, the pgn has no moves. I also numbered the games.

Give this a try. I used epd2diag for the conversion. I do not think it will be useful in building a book, but you never know until you try.

http://www.mediafire.com/?onq9y798q0qc8mv

[Graham Banks]

Give this a try. I used epd2diag for the conversion. I do not think it will be useful in building a book, but you never know until you try.

http://www.mediafire.com/?onq9y798q0qc8mv

Thanks Norm. I'll take a look. I'm trying to create a couple of books for ChessGUI.
One will be the AdamHair8moves.cgb and the other will be yours. If I'm successful, shall we call yours the NormPollock8moves.cgb book?

Cheers,
Graham.

[Norm Pollock]

Give this a try. I used epd2diag for the conversion. I do not think it will be useful in building a book, but you never know until you try.

http://www.mediafire.com/?onq9y798q0qc8mv

Thanks Norm. I'll take a look. I'm trying to create a couple of books for ChessGUI.
One will be the AdamHair8moves.cgb and the other will be yours. If I'm successful, shall we call yours the NormPollock8moves.cgb book?

Cheers,
Graham.

Hi Graham,

I seriously doubt that you can make a book from a pgn file that just has opening positions in FEN tags, and no further moves. If I am wrong, then the name should be Miracle8Moves.cgb

There is nothing in this pgn file that tells the GUI how the FEN position was created. And one FEN position could be created by many, many different permutations of moves.

The only way an epd file can be used as a book is a starting position for both engines.

-Norm

[Graham Banks]

Hi Graham,

I seriously doubt that you can make a book from a pgn file that just has opening positions in FEN tags, and no further moves. If I am wrong, then the name should be Miracle8Moves.cgb

There is nothing in this pgn file that tells the GUI how the FEN position was created. And one FEN position could be created by many, many different permutations of moves.

The only way an epd file can be used as a book is a starting position for both engines.

-Norm

You're correct. There was no miracle. I can only create a ChessGUI opening book from a pgn file format.

Cheers,
Graham.

[Norm Pollock]

Hi Graham,

I seriously doubt that you can make a book from a pgn file that just has opening positions in FEN tags, and no further moves. If I am wrong, then the name should be Miracle8Moves.cgb

There is nothing in this pgn file that tells the GUI how the FEN position was created. And one FEN position could be created by many, many different permutations of moves.

The only way an epd file can be used as a book is a starting position for both engines.

-Norm

You're correct. There was no miracle. I can only create a ChessGUI opening book from a pgn file format.

Cheers,
Graham.

Graham,

All is not lost.

I do know which games produced each of the 3710 epd positions. I could copy and paste 1 game for each position. But that would take several hours of manual labor which I am not in the mood to do. But it is possible.

It is also possible for me to write a pgn utility tool to extract the games by number and all I would have to do is supply the game numbers of the games to be extracted. That I will probably do sometime soon. After I do that, I will have a pgn database of 3710 pgn games that will produce 3710 distinct positions after move 8.

That database will be usable for creating an opening book which in turn would only be useful if BOTH engines use it and the book is used at 16 plies. Next snowy day I'll do that.

-Norm

[Graham Banks]

All is not lost.

I do know which games produced each of the 3710 epd positions. I could copy and paste 1 game for each position. But that would take several hours of manual labor which I am not in the mood to do. But it is possible.

It is also possible for me to write a pgn utility tool to extract the games by number and all I would have to do is supply the game numbers of the games to be extracted. That I will probably do sometime soon. After I do that, I will have a pgn database of 3710 pgn games that will produce 3710 distinct positions after move 8.

That database will be usable for creating an opening book which in turn would only be useful if BOTH engines use it and the book is used at 16 plies. Next snowy day I'll do that.

-Norm

Please don't feel obligated Norm. If you were to do this, I would use it, but there are several other books already available.

Cheers,
Graham.

PS - just having a go at making my own ChessGUI openings book. I've made that AdamHair8moves one and will make it available once Matthias has checked that I've done it correctly..

[Graham Banks]

I've downloaded Norm's pgn utilities, but not sure exactly how I can activate them to edit and clean up a pgn file.
I'm not very clever at this sort of thing, so if somebody could provide simple instructions, I'd really appreciate it. I've tried without success so far.
Once I can get one of the utilities working, I'll probably be okay with the others.

[Norm Pollock]

I've downloaded Norm's pgn utilities, but not sure exactly how I can activate them to edit and clean up a pgn file.
I'm not very clever at this sort of thing, so if somebody could provide simple instructions, I'd really appreciate it. I've tried without success so far.
Once I can get one of the utilities working, I'll probably be okay with the others.

Hi Graham,

The "readme" is on my page (see www below)

Here is a direct link to the readme:

http://www.hoflink.com/~npollock/readme-PGN.txt

here is a short summary:

copy the program to the folder where the input file is located.
(or put the folder of all the programs on the path)

then open a command window, go to the folder where the input file is located, and execute a command, for example:

cleanup alpha.pgn

the output file(s) are new and the original input is unchanged. In this case the output files are out2.pgn and exclude2.pgn

however read the instructions for each program for using because some of them have slightly different instructions.

-Norm