Fritz 12 - custom opening book training

Hi, I am using Fritz 12 for my opening training.  My goal was to create a custom opening book with my list of moves so that I could play against Fritz to learn my opening.  Here's what I did:

1. Created New opening book.  

2. I imported 15 games into the book, with variations.

3. I set the book settings as shown below.

4. I hit ctrl-N to start a new game against fritz.  I am learning black, so I want Fritz to make the first move, e4.  So I hit space bar to force Fritz to move.  As you can see in the 3rd picture below, he starts thinking.  And he almost always moves 1. d4 which, as you can also see, isn't even in the book.  

Interestingly, if *I* move first (i.e., I play White), then he will respond with an immediate book move.  But I can't seem to get Fritz to use the book when I want him to play White.  Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong here?

Thank you!

-Mike 

No suggestions?  Anyone?

These videos should help Fritz Book Training  & Creating Your own Opening Database

Thanks, however, that actually doesn't seem to be working either.  For instance, as I noted, I've already created an opening database, where the only existing first three moves are:  1. e4 d6 2. d4.  So I clicked on your link and I followed the directions in the Fritz Book Training video.  I picked the French defense, and had the board start out with a white pawn on e4 and a black pawn on d6.  Then I clicked Move Now.  The opening book only has one possible next move: 2. d4.  However, Fritz started thinking, meaning he wasn't choosing from the opening book.  I pasted a screenshot here, where you can see 2. d4 is the only allowable book move, and Fritz is thinking.  He ended up moving 2. Nf3.  I'm honestly baffled why this isn't working.

I haven't used Fritz in many years, but what you've done seems reasonable; I'd think it should work. Does Fritz use the book when it's playing as Black if you load the regular opening book?

Yep, Fritz plays the book as Black whether I'm using the regular opening book or my created opening book.  That's the thing that's really confusing me--if he didn't play with my book with either color, at least it'd be consistent.  But he'll use my book as black, but not as white.  Versus when I play a game with him using the regular book, he'll play book as either color. 

I'm not sure about this, but it looks to me that the weighting of the 1. e4 move might be set to 0%, which would explain why the engine won't use the book for 1. e4 when it's playing as White.

Try changing the weighting of that move to the maximum amount. Try right-clicking the mouse on the move in the opening book window. (My old Fritz's move weighting range is from -125 to +125).

Did you check the "Learn Moves" in the training dialog box? I've been using this with my created opening book with no problem so there must be a setting that's not right.

Also, make sure the book you want to use is being used for training . Hope one these suggestions fixes your problem.

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. 

EscherehcsE: I changed the weight to 125 (shown below) and then started a new game, hit Move Now, and Fritz moved 1. Nf3.  So no luck there.  Working off the same idea, I even gave 1. e4 an exclamation, to really try to make him emphasize that move.  He still moved 1. Nf3.  There must be some setting somewhere, but it certainly isn't obvious.

RMHalliday: I'm not using the Opening Training feature of Fritz; rather I just want to play a full game against him with my opening book, so the Learn Moves checkbox isn't available there.  Additionally, I actually don't want him to learn from the game results, but rather randomly choose among the moves in the book for variety and practice.

I don't know. This kind of problem is the main reason I stopped using Fritz. The features just tend to be non-user friendly and illogically implemented.

Anyway, I think you have to do something to change that last zero in the [%] column to 100. Maybe try right-clicking on the 1.e4 line, then click on "Main move". Maybe that will work. (If you haven't noticed yet, I'm grasping at straws now.)

It's my understanding (and I agree a lot of things with Fritz are pretty non-intuitive, which is why I'm definitely not certain this is the case) that that last % sign is the percentage of time that move has been played.  Though that raises a good question: since that's the ONLY opening move in any of the games I've got in that db, why is it listed as 0%?  Maybe it's the number of times Fritz has played it as the opener (which would certainly be true and is the current bane of my existence :) ).  

I just tried the "main move" thing, and as you'll probably guess, it didn't work.  The thing that's really irking me is that it works when Fritz plays Black.  I mean, c'mon already!! 

Thanks again for trying to help.  

From my Fritz 8 Help file:

Prob and [%]: The first value is the purely statistical probability of the move, based on the number of times it was played and the results achieved in the games that went into the book. This is the probability of the move being played by the program as long as the weights have not been changed – either manually or by automatic learning. The value on the right [%] is the practical probability of the program playing the move. This is a product of the statistical evaluation and the weights. If you change the latter you can see how the [%] value (but not the “Prob”) changes.

Here's an idea that might be worth trying. I'm not sure your opening book will work in Fritz 8, but you could upload the book to a filesharing site. I'll download it and see what I can do with it in Fritz 8. (No promises on results. )

I've used www.sendspace.com before, and it couldn't be easier to use. No accounts, no signing up, no e-mail addresses required. You just upload the file, get a download link, and give the link to anyone you want to have access to it.

You need to edit the book. Add !! to moves that you want Fritz to play.

Ziryab: thanks; I've already tried that with no luck.

EscherehcsE: (your name is hard to type, like following an Escher piece :) ) - yeah, I realized I was wrong on the [%] thing soon after I posted it.  Thanks for that clarification.  I'll see what I can do about putting the book up on a site, and will message you details.  Thanks!

Well, I don't really understand why Fritz does what it does, but here's what I did:

1) I went into Book Options (Edit --> Openings Book --> Book Options) and checked the boxes for both "Use book" and "Tournament book". (It's important to note that I couldn't get Fritz to play the book moves unless I had "Tournament book" checked. I don't know why.)

2) Next, for each move that had zero in the [%] column that I wanted to modify, I first right-clicked on the move, then clicked on "Don't play in tournament". This action will turn the move to a red color.

3) Now, for that same move that you turned red in step 2, right-click on the move, then click on "Main move". This action should turn the move a green color and change the zero in the [%] column to a non-zero number. (If you only modify one line, it should change to 100; if you modify two lines, they should change to 50; if you modify three lines, they should change to 33, etc.).

Now, Fritz should play book moves, even when it moves first in a game.

Wow, seriously that's what worked!?  Fritz is strange.  Thanks so much for playing around with that.  It's strange that that should be necessary for Fritz to play White when it played as Black just fine.  Very odd.  Thanks again for your help - I'll be trying that out tonight after work.

Hey Michael, here's a new twist on your problem. This morning, on a whim, I decided to see what would happen if I just created a French book of my own.

I downloaded the "FrenchClassical.pgn" file from here: http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html#openings

I did the same steps that you originally did: Create a new opening book, import the games from the pgn file. (I tried creating the book both with variations, and without variations. I also tried creating the book both with "Tournament book" checked and unchecked.)

And the result was that the new opening book worked flawlessly. There were numbers in the [%] column that added up to 100 (as you'd hope), without having to go through the gyrations of clicking on "Don't play in tournament" and "Main move". And the new book worked perfectly, regardless of whether I created the book with or without variations, or with or without "Tournament book" being chosen. As long as the game was still "in book", Fritz would always instantly make a book move, regardless of whether it was playing Black or White.

So I can't explain what the problem is with the book that you created, but I'd recommend that you try to create the book again from scratch. And maybe before you do that, try creating a book using the games from the "FrenchClassical.pgn" file and see if you get the same result that I got.

I'm beginning to wonder if there might be a problem with the game pgn file that you used to create your book. If you want to upload the game pgn file, I can try to create an opening book with it and see if I have the same problems as you had.

And one more question just to be on the safe side: Have you updated your Fritz with the latest GUI update?