How to Analyse In Arena

Hi,

I have downloaded Arena and want to use the Rybka engine to analyse one of my games. I have figured out how to upload my game via the png, but I am confused as to how to get it to analyse my game.

I clicked engines -> automatic analysis and got it to spend 30mins analysing my game with Rybka, but after it was done nothing happened! How do I actually see its analysis and move suggestions and such?

Thanks in advance,

Top Hat

By default it saves the analysis to C:\Program Files\Arena\Analyses.log

Ah got it, thanks.

Two questions though, what do all the lines it posts actually mean? Are they what it thinks is going to happen after the move? Or is it the best line for black (who's move it was) or the best line for white (I was playing as white) or what? Here is an example:

9. ..e5xf4            

    Best move (Rybka 2.2 32 bit): e5xf4

    Identical moves! Found in: 00:00

      -0.52  e5xf4 Qd1-d2 Bf8-d6 d3-d4 Nc6-a5 Bb3-a2 O-O e4-e5 Bd6-e7 Qd2xf4 Na5-c4

Also, is there a way that it can give you the second and third best move as well?

Thanks loads,

Top Hat

Oh and one last thing, is there a way of viewing the analysis in the arena interface so you can actually see the moves and stuff on the chess board?

Yep, the output is saved in either the Analyses.log or Analyses.rep files, but I'm guessing you just want to see the results in the GUI windows? If your Arena settings are right, after an auto analysis, you should see variations and numerical evaluations in the move list, and you should also see an evaluation bar chart in the statistics window. If not, you need to tweak your settings.

First, right-click your mouse cursor in the move list window, then go to the "Display" choice. There should be three items that can be activated (Values/times, Comments, and Book names). Go ahead and activate all three items. I should note that sometimes after an auto analysis, the variations might not show up in the moves list. The information is there, but it just doesn't display like it should. (Call it a bug or a quirk, your choice. ) You can get the results to display by just cycling through a couple of tabs of the move list window. (For example, you could click on the "Mix1" tab, then click on the "Movelist" tab again.)

Also, the evaluation bar chart might not display like it should. Simply left-clicking your mouse cursor in the statistics window should make the bar chart visible.

Sorry, I didn't see your latest comments before I made my previous post.

Frankly, I never look at the results in the log files. (I don't get into the analysis to that level of detail.)

Unfortunately, I think auto analysis can only handle one principal variation. If you want more than one PV, you'll have to analyze the moves manually, one by one. (You can activate Multi-PV mode by right-clicking in the engine analysis window, then picking "Multi-PV mode", then picking the number of lines you want.) Warning - If you try to auto-analyze with Multi-PV on, you'll get gibberish for output.

Thanks for the help. I activated all three item, ran an auto analysis and once it was done still nothing happened. I cycled through the tabs and still nothing showed. The only time it adds anything is when I click the "Let the engine calculate and make a move" button.

Do I nned to do anything special once the auto analysis window says its finished? I just close the window...

It shouldn't matter at all whether you close the analysis window or leave it open. No, you don't need to do anything special after the auto analysis.

At the moment, I have no idea why it's not working for you. The only suggestion I have atm is to start experimenting with various settings.

Check the basic settings first. Things like, in the Auto Analysis window, Source tab - Are both colours checked, and are All moves checked?

Yep they are both checked. This is so annoying...

OK, for the moment, forget about auto analysis mode. Restart Arena and make sure you have a new starting position. Load Rybka, then just click on the Demo button on the navigation bar. Rybka should start playing both sides, and after the moves leave the opening book, you should be getting green analysis in the moves window after each move. You should also be getting red and blue bars in the evaluation graph. If you aren't getting that, you have one or more bad settings that are unrelated to the auto analysis feature.

Yay, it worked! Thanks loads :)

how do I get chess.com games onto arena?

@DJMAX10 - when you finish a game on chess.com, go to the Computer analysis. Below the buttons to scroll between moves you should see an icon that says "download". If you click that it will download to your computer. At that point you can click on PGN>New in Arena and it will import that file.